The World Without Flags

Pest’s face darkens with fury. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be his age and stuck in the body of a child. Pest leans forward over the table. “I was out on the roads by myself for a long time,” he says in a low, barely-controlled voice. “I’m a lot tougher than I look.”

Randy and Pest glower at each other for a moment, and then Randy smiles widely, his teeth shining white. He jabs a finger toward me suddenly. “I’ll take her,” he says, still looking at Pest. “She can take care of herself.” He turns toward me. “Ain’t that right, Birdie?”

The sound of my name grates against me, but he’s right. “Yeah,” I say. “I can.”

Pest is quivering with anger, his lips tight. He turns away from Randy toward me. “I can go,” he says. “I can find us a place.”

“Except I ain’t taking you,” Randy states flatly.

Pest snaps his head toward him angrily, but before he can speak, I grab his shoulder and jerk him to get his attention. Reluctantly, he looks away from Randy and toward me. “You have something else to do,” I tell him. When Pest tries to turn away, still angry, I give his shoulder another tug. “Look at me!” He does, at first reluctantly, but when we’re looking at each other, I see his blue eyes soften, and the stiffness in his face relaxes. “Listen,” I tell him. “I can do this, but I need you to do something for me.”

“What?” Pest asks.

“You have to promise me to look after Eric,” I say. “You don’t know what I’ve already been through to keep him safe.” I look at him with sharp eyes. “Eric means more to me than anything in this world. I wouldn’t think of leaving him with anyone but you. But you have to promise me. You have to promise me that you’ll look after him.”

Pest and I look at each other for a moment, in silence, eyes glistening. I can see him thinking, feel him trying to figure out another way. And I feel some communication between us, something difficult to describe, something like trust and faith and weakness all together. It’s a strange feeling that passes between us, like we’re indestructible and fragile all at once. Finally Pest nods at me, once, curtly, accepting this new deal. The next second he pulls away from the table, his chair screeching against the floor like the scream of a witch. He shoots a foreboding, hateful look at Randy, and then turns away and retreats from the room, down to the basement. We hear him slam a door shut. It echoes in the church.

Randy chuckles and when I turn back to him, his smile goes wide, and he’s all teeth and green eyes. “Well,” he says. “Guess it’s just you and me.” He stands up. “You better go say your goodbyes. We leave in an hour.”

125

I don’t know how to say goodbye to Pest. I don’t know how he became so important to me in such a little time. Or maybe it hasn’t been such a little time, really. In the end, we stand with Eric in his cell. Neither of us want to look at each other. I tell him he has to wash Eric every day, that he has to try to get him to eat, that he has to feed him salt water. I tell him to be careful that he doesn’t get scratched or accidentally bitten, even though I know it doesn’t matter. You can’t get the Worm twice.

I don’t know how to say goodbye to Eric either. He stands tall and straight these days, sometimes even on the tips of his toes, as if he’s trying to lift himself into the air. He keeps his eyes wide open, but sometimes, and I have no clue as to why, he squints his left eye real tight. It’s almost like a wink, except that it lasts a long time, sometimes as long as a minute, and then his face relaxes and his jaw drops again. He’s got his eye shut now, pinched tight, and it really seems to me that he’s saying goodbye somehow. But I have no idea. Looking in his other eye, I don’t see any sign of the Eric I knew. I see nothing but a dark pit and the wriggling of worms.

“Take care of yourself,” I tell him. I embrace him, trying not to notice his cold body against mine, or the smell of soap and ammonia. He smells like a place that has been scrubbed and disinfected and is now off limits to living things. But the smell is far, far better than before, and it makes me feel like we’re winning. I put my hand on his gray cheek. “I’ll be back so soon, you won’t even miss me.”

His face suddenly relaxes and then his jaw drops. “Unh,” he says softly.

Suddenly I get an awful feeling that I’ll never see him alive again. I freeze on the spot, stiff with fear.

“I’ll take care of him,” Pest whispers to me, putting his hand on my shoulder.

I turn toward him, fighting down tears. “Don’t let anything happen to him,” I tell him. “Promise me!”

He pulls me in for an embrace. I put my head on top of his and try not to cry. “I promise,” Pest says. “Nothing will happen to him.”