The City Still Breathing by Matthew Heiti Page A

shape of a mattress and a lantern, ember still fading, hanging on a nail. No one in sight.
    Gordon circles the structure, settling in front of the only door. He raises a foot to kick, but spotting the mess attached to his ankle, he lays in with his shoulder instead. The lock splinters and Gordon pours into the dark interior.
    Another fist connects with his jaw. And the kid is up and skating away, carrying the puck deep into their zone. He sees the number on the back of the kid’s sweater – #18. Draft pick with the North Stars. Hotshot. Twenty seconds left. If he scores now, it’s done. He pulls himself to his feet and gives chase. The kid’s fast, but Gordon wants it more. Fifteen seconds. No one else around. All on him. Send it to overtime. Give them one last chance. The kid shifts the puck to his left side. He’s gonna go backhand. A flash move. He can see it happening, down low under the pads. The playoffs over just like that. Everything over. Ten seconds. The white noise of the crowd. Scouts watching. Crash – people pounding the glass shouting. Crash – you’re gonna be big – the next one! Crash – hit em, hit em, Python! Crash – Hit em, Killer! The puck is cocked, he’s not gonna reach him. Five seconds. He drops his stick, reaches out with his left, grabbing the back of the kid’s jersey, pulls him in. Crash – kill em! Kill em, Gordo! Crash – his fist hits the back of the kid’s skull. Crash . The kid hits the ice, head bouncing. Crash . The arena is silent. He doesn’t see the puck. He doesn’t see anything. Everything crashes down.
    Gordon feels nothing again. No fire, no cold, just nothing.
    He tosses the kid on the mattress and stands over him. The kid doesn’t move.
    A slow glow fills the cabin, orange fire, revealing everything in stark detail. Corncob-yellow paint has disguised the rotting wood, fading photographs smiling from behind tacks, a small collection of tinned food, and at the heart of it all – snake scales and a gold watch. He glances out the window. The carts have pulled up on the embankment across from the shack, puking up a stream of molten slag, glowing in the night.
    He looks down at this kid, maybe not even nineteen. Still not moving. The body on the television. The body on the ice. This body here. His body on his bed in his empty apartment. His snake laid out in her terrarium. They all look the same.
    The kid groans. ‘Please. Don’t kill me.’
    Gordon feels all his breath go out and he sinks to his knees, weak – so weak. He leans over the kid and reaches out to brush his hair, wipe off some of the blood, but the kid rolls away. Looking at the small body on this mattress, he can see some kind of vice already closing in, and he thinks about his own place, his one-room bachelor above the newsstand. And he wants to tell him, I won’t hurt you. There’s more in this world than all this shit, this slag. He wants to save him. Just kick the puck away.
    But instead he reaches out again and drags the boots off the kid’s feet. He pulls them on, his own feet sticky with blood, catching the vapour of warmth inside. He stands again, leather creaking, the sensation flooding back – his first day wearing them, two weeks ago. Walking back from the Donovan, feeling the warmth, the comfort of having something he cared for so close. Taking the edge off everything so cold creeping in at all corners. And he imagines he can feel, at the left ankle, the place where he scratched the name. Five letters and a number.
    â€˜Hey.’ The kid, now sitting up, holds something out to him – the gold watch. ‘Take it. My old man gave it to me. It’s all I got.’
    Gordon feels something stick in his throat. Just boots. Just a snake. Just a name. Nothing’s just anything. Dead inside and out, they all look the same. They’re all the same. And they all have the same name. Katie #18.
    He