The City Still Breathing by Matthew Heiti

puck. You dump it, but it’s picked off centre ice. You square up, watch him bring it over the line. He’s got his head down, charging, as you sneak up on his side. Score tied, thirty seconds left. You lower the shoulder, one two three strides.
    Each step brings him closer to Gatchell. Closer to just putting this whole thing behind him.
    He remembers the day he brought the rattler in to that old Serb down in the Donovan. Gordon had been careful with her, careful not to bring his hand near for the first few hours, knowing the heat of his touch would trigger the hidden electricity in her jaw – venom and fang. He brought her wrapped in newspaper, finally stiff, to that baba – white drifts of hair coiled in a bun. He watched the woman temper the leather, work the cork and finally peel the rattlesnake’s skin back, leaving only the black marbles of the eyes behind. She had been kind enough to ignore him each time he cleared his throat, swallowing back the image of his own skin stripped away – laying open the black core of loneliness inside.
    Gordon stands before the slag banks, the lights of Gatchell at his back. He stands, one foot in slipper and on asphalt, the other bare and on the grit of slag.
    He leaves the city behind and walks into the narrow path. On either side, the banks, heaps of black pebbles, tower over him. The banks seem to run straight to the horizon, and he scans for some break, some hint of the cluster of abandoned shacks the foreman grafted into the hillside. They still run the slag dumps at night. People used to come watch the rail cars pour the melted waste down the sides of the hills, a spreading wasteland. Some would sneak a trunk-load home for the driveway. But the novelty of it is gone. The only people who come up here now are crazies, junkies or people with something to hide.
    There. A movement – shuffling – somebody walking toward him. Gordon veers to the right, sticking to the shadow of the bank of slag, and waits.
    A tuneless whistling slices through the cold air, and the figure comes clear as it draws closer. A man. A young man. Peach fuzz. Can’t be much older than nineteen. T-shirt, even in this cold. Some tough case. And as the kid passes him, Gordon catches the shine of gold at the wrist. A watch.
    The kid’s crossing into their zone and he angles up along the boards, sneaking up on the right side. The kid’s skating fast, but his head’s still down. He cuts in on him, coming up hard, and lays in with the shoulder. Wham! – and they both get tangled and hit the ice.
    They’re on the slag and the kid thrashes, catching Gordon with the familiar sensation of a right hook, and he loses his hold, the kid leaping to his feet and rushing for the opposite bank. Gordon drags his ass off the ground, kicks off the remaining slipper and gives chase.
    The kid scampers cat-like up the bank – loosing an avalanche of slag down on him. The kid clambers to the top and stands on the crest of the ridge, turning to look down at him. A kick from above, a cloud of dust and rock, and Gordon sees it. The network of the diamondback pattern on the kid’s feet. A glimpse and he’s out of sight over the ridge.
    The furnace in his gut propels Gordon to the top of the bank. Behind him, he can see the steady snowfall peppering the lake of slag and beyond, all the lights in the mining town winking on. Turning back, he can see the dark shapes of the shacks huddling on the side of the bank below. Only one light, the flicker of a lantern, in a window. Door slam – the light goes out.
    Gordon, with his eyes focused on this shack – eyes on the puck – descends. His feet leaving a trail of blood on the snow and slag in his wake.
    Gordon moves between the cindered and rotting wood of the buildings. The smell of decay reaching past the paper still lodged in his nostrils. He finds the shack, camouflaged by the rest, but through the window he can see the