Headful of ghosts.

[greedy fly]

Revenge waited like a medicated panther on a curb. His knees were cockeyed towards the open wound of black English sky. The pub was filtering out. Freezing vapor puffed like cottonmouth cigarette smoke from his mouth. He was stubborn against winter temperatures. An Indian-brown leather kept his biceps shaded for hours, but right now he was reptilian; cold-blooded and felt nothing. Then, in his whipping peripheral he saw the pub?s neon light fizzle out, and he heard the sluggish upturning of stools on lacquered tables. He heaved himself upright, and with a lazy gait, he began to saunter in gravitation towards the pub. It was on the corner of Sycamore, and it faced an intersection that barely saw the gleam of headlights past four am.

The back door canted open, and a scrawny, aging man -- he couldn?t have been a day over fifty-three, but by the looks of it, he could?ve been seventy. His left eye was lazy, and his good eye couldn?t even be considered good. There was a cloudy saucer over it that distorted the color so that it was a mucky, ugly blue. He fished for his car keys, and struck a fag. He caught a glimpse of the advancing young man, and smugly said:

? ?Pub?s closed, son.?

He didn?t even bother to notice that he?d been in there earlier.

Solomon just absently nodded, his pinkie finger twitching like a trigger to coil into the asphalt span of his palm. His jaw line tightened -- (red tape for anyone that knew him) with razor wire thread, and he broke into a tame smile. There was a sick uprising twitching at the corners though, nicking dimples into his graveyard-white cheeks.

?I don?t think you ever considered the fact that one day, I?d grow up and become a man, Danny.?

The bolt of realization came in the form of a haggard face fault. He made no attempt to apologize for what he did to his mother, and what he did to Solomon.

This time, he took the brutal beating like a child; hunched in a fetal position, weeping music box lullabies.

[[email protected]]

<center></center>


It's been a wild two months. I just recently arrived, a few days ago, and took the cat back. She wasn't very pleased to see me, understandably. She's a stubborn feline, but she'll get over it soon enough.

I can't tell if I'm happy to be back or not. There were a thousand little blessings back in the UK, but there were most depressing patches, too. After hanging out with my old mates from primary and on, I realised that us Kilburn Boys have gone nowhere and have done nothing productive and revolutionary with our lives. When were boys we used to rant and rave about how we were going to change that city, that place. The only difference with me is that I managed to get away, and that I actually receive a paycheck every week religiously. Of course, that is my most legal source of income, and definitely not my only source. I crashed at James' (the most effeminate of all of us, and for the sake of irony, I'm guessing, has decided not only to sell drugs, but to pimp girls out) place for awhile. The walls that were once white were yellowed with cigarette smoke and the fact that there's no one to look after the messes, any longer. His Mum died of AIDs shortly after I left. No one knew she was sick.

I found a few rare treasures--things on vinyl that I couldn't find here, books, absinthe. I made sure to bring that back to the states in the form of a sly suitcase import. My friends will appreciate it. Ever since I've been home, I've been putting together a sort of portfolio for a girl named Shannon I met awhile back at the Tavern. I vaguely remember driving her home once---alright, it's not so vague, I have a razorshap memory when she was completely caned with a girl named Ophelia about a year ago. It turns out that she owns an art gallery, and is very exuberant about displaying my work ...

I think I have everything together, and I'll probably make a trip to her house tomorrow if I'm feeling ambitious.

It's funny how I've been out of work for a month. I didn't tell anyone I was leaving, save for Quinn and Jill, and the moment I arrived today, Sal tossed me my apron and laminated name-tag and told me to get to work. Poor old git, I can't wait for the day he realises my name is Solomon, not Soloman. You can't write over a laminated name-tag, really.

In all honesty, I think I've been cleaning up my act quite well. I only slept with one person back in Kilburn, and that was an old childhood flame. It was really a worst case scenario. I met up with her at a pub, cos word was traveling that I was back home, and she managed to bait me into her flat. All was well, until we both fell asleep. I woke up to a baby shrieking in the next room, and her husband flinging the bedroom door open. Apparently, he came home a day too early, and she could give fuck all. I didn't let him chase me out of the flat naked, I have more dignity than that, so I managed to get in a few blows before I collected my clothes and ran out. It was an adrenaline rush. I used to love shagging married women just because I loved to sate the insatiable, and I loved the secrecy. But also, because there was bound to be a fight or two, and I love to fight. But honestly, this time, I didn't even know she was married...

To say the least, I couldn't buy a dimebag of MJ, anywhere, and when I did, it was fucking waste. That's one good thing about being back in the states, it's so easy to score the simple pleasures in life. I didn't feel like driving all the way up to Edinburgh but some people told me that they had ex...


His gaze gravitated away from his bruised notebook pages and crashlanded on the silhouette spelled out in his bedroom doorway. Quinn slinked across the shallow-lit room, perfumed with weed diluted by outside air, and sank knee-first onto his bed. She sidled next to him, and nestled her temple on his naked shoulder, but not until after she extended her pro-ana arm for the ashtray lounging on his night stand. She planted it on the concave landscape of his belly, and sprinkled confetti ash, sighing. Her hair was at a grungy length, and she seemingly had no problem with floating down the stairs and hallway in boy-cut underwear and a tanktop.

Solomon stashed his notebook aside, with the pen still buckled between the pages, and he wrapped her up in both arms, smearing a kiss to the top of her head.

"So what do'ya'got?"

"Xanex, Vicodin, Adderall, Valium, Oxycontin... I have some Special K, but no coke left. Ah ...acid. Some good acid. Do yew know anyone who has the money to buy any in the next couple of days?"

"You can probably convince ..." She let out a strung-out hum, hammering the heel of her palm to her forehead, scouring for a list of customers. "Definitely, Johnny C, I got some guy named Jim that would be interested in the Valium."

"Oh yeh," a grin bannered across his mouth at the same time his brows leapt with epiphanic excitement. "I brought back some absinthe, too."

Gasping in startled ecstasy, Quinn slithered up to straddle his stomach, inching the ashtray higher to pose between the clever bridges of his ribcage.

"Well, we can chase some sugar cubes with it, then. We'll have a party tonight Sol, just me an' you."

"Alright, then."


excellent coke. Quinn came over last night. I was shocked I even woke up in time for work today, and I didn't get around to stopping by Shannon's, but I will tomorrow. We slept together, Quinn and I--for the first time in a long time. I can't really remember most of it, but I can remember that it was good, and we both left this morning with a smile. I'm not nineteen, anymore, though. I understand the fact that we're both friends, and we both get lonely, and when we're single ---why the fuck not?

<font color="#EE0000" size="1">[ March 25, 2005 01:46 AM: Message edited by: softcore jukebox ]</font>

[greedy fly]

Why can't we let our mouths devour each other? Why can't we turn those miles into inches
letters into breath, years into seconds? (We always said we'd return to the candy coated jungle.) We always said that we would return to see what kind of orchard our heart seeds grew. I know where the canaries go. I know where the crows go. So pick up the fucking phone.


I sent you a letter just the other day my friend, it said: "Tonight, my body is crucified across the carcus that our love grew on. Tonight black feathers float from the sky like it's raining lies. Tonight my lungs are hanging from a telephone wire, choking on the broken digits of a dial tone. Tonight telephone booths and trucks gawk as my ribcage snaps and snarls like a venus fly trap."

Our mouths are limp mouths. We said we'd return for our petrified hearts - put our name to the parchment made a pact in the dark. Gauze gagged beaks may pump and beat but sealed inside are secrets screaming to speak. So open up your chest and let the birds free. So meet me under the deserted desert tree. We'll eat sand crumpets and drink cactus tea, e'll pretend this dirt is sea.

We ate the white from the wedding, ate the sheets from the bedding, ate the smiles off our children, ate the leather off our birth skin. Have we wasted our whole lives sucking candy coated bullets from the chemical gun? Every car that passes on this crooked highway bears your face on it's grill. Every headlight casts your shadow onto my open hear vigil. I know where the canaries go. I know where the crows go.

They go into fucking skeletons.


-- The Blood Brothers.

[greedy fly]

It was late May, but the weather was both uncanny and petty. The week before had been surfing in the mid-eighties, but now it was about forty-five degrees and chill was crippling. The sky was overcast and choked with a fine, foggy mist like the distant hiss of a waterfall. It shocked everyone into their winter coats again for this fine occasion. Everyone except Solomon Stills and Quinn Rosalin.

Her skin was dotted with shrill goosebumps that devoured her upper arms to elbows. The straps of her black dress were thick, but hung awkwardly like shredded confetti off her bonedriven shoulders. Both of her arms were crossed at her abdomen, she nutured a cigarette without listening to the distant sermon. In a black blazer and a rakish white dress shirt, he didn't look anymore out of place than the rest of the overgrown junkies littering the cemetary lawn. Together, they were an essential piece in the background canvas. Their mutters were spoken in fine verse, angling their chins away out of respect.

"What are you going to do?"

Solomon watched the eerie cycle of legs waltzing around the perimeter of the grave, and the limp roses that were tussled overboard in a flimsy 'goodbye.' He watched a man with premature white sideburns edge a bite-sized little girl with black bangs and thin, shoulder-length hair to the edge, coaxing the flower to garnish the basket from her chubby fist.

"I don't know."

[greedy fly]

Solomon,

I'm assuming you stopped talking to me because you and Jude got together and all and because you both tried to quit junk. Or Jude did. Either way whatever that's your thing no big deal. I have a six year old girl and her name is Madison Ann. You probly don't know this because you haven't given me the time of day in years. But here she is. Here I am. Doctors say I would not be dieing from the Hepatitis C for about ten years or longer. They said I had awhile to go. I even stopped drinking almost completly. But here I am in and out of the hospital trying to do best for Madison but its really hard. Things sure as hell aren't looking up. I wrote you this so you know that my mother and my father can't take her in. They are good people but they have problems of there own to worry about. My mom has been off her rocker for years now and my dad is trying his best to cope with it and he has been getting old really fast. Its just been Madison and me for years now. When I'm gone I want you to know that she's either yours or Jude's. I can't get an address on Jude and I've heard that you to don't even talk anymore. So if you can get a hold of him that would be OK too. Get paternity test. All that shit. I don't know if your even in the right place in your life to be taking care of a little girl, but I've heard good things about you lately. Heard you stopped coke, congrats you have alot more willpower than I do. Bless you little boy. I know your no little boy anymore. Twenty five I'm guessing. I'm sorry I used to call you a little boy. Haha. I know how mad that used to make you when you were nineteen. If you talk to Jude please tell him. I'm trusting you. I'm trusting him. Madison is my life, and she has made me smile all these years. I quit junk for her but I'm still no good. She's very bright & is very quiet. She's going into first grade this year. She outshines all of her classmates. No hassel. She sings to herself, she has a beautiful voice. She really does remind me of you.

Trish.


There was a cryptic lull of banter and forced laughter raggedly painting every wall of the weathered town-house just outside of town. Everyone camoflauged so well in their dreary blacks, speaking in hushed tongues around their wine glasses. The mood and culture of the post-funeral banquet was set: Trishia Sweeney held little to no significance. They were there to pay their last respects to her parents and cough up excuses to leave as soon as possible. There were no fairytales or nostalgia; Trish represented a dark period of everyone's life. She was one of the many that died quickly after the last call went out at the party. Solomon Stills, Jillian Monroe, and Judas Eden were the only ones that didn't trash their lives completely. Solomon and Quinn were the only ones who made it to the funeral. Their entrance into Mr. Sweeney's yellow-walled home made all of the closet junkies flunk into a brittle silence.

Trailing after the host, they kept their chins bowed and wound past the untouched trays of food, and up the green-carpeted accordion of stairs into a narrow hall. They smoothed into Trish's abandoned bedroom that was rejuvenated into a makeshift office for her father, who was a retired plumber. He was trying to start his own car wash business. The carpet was gray, and beneath the serene windowsill there was a burgundy, leather loveseat. He motioned for them to sit and took residence in his swivel chair, wheeling in front of him.

He plucked away at his glasses, and rinsed over the bridge of his nose with a lighthearted pressure pinch. He still had a full head of hair, and a scraggly mustache. Solomon thought he looked like an ex-cop. Quinn thought he looked like a merry chef that had seen better days.

Both of them sat almost obediently, side-by-side, their hands neatly gnarled in their laps. His kneecap was seesawing wildly, until Quinn abruptly nudged him to stop.

"Are you two together?"

"No, she's my good friend. She lives upstairs to me," Solomon replied, throwing a cursory glance to her.

This answer seemed to disappoint Mr. Sweeney, judging by the heave of his sigh and the tired eclipse of his lids.

"Listen. I'd take Madison in, Solomon. But, Gretchen's been having problems for years. She needs a lot of help, and having a little girl running around isn't going to help much. We could barely take Madison on the weekends or holidays. It's not that she's a bad kid, she's a very good kid. Quiet. But Gretchen just can't keep herself together when it's just us, let alone in front of a little girl. And this..." He replaced his glasses and knocked back into a slouching recline, wavering a hand to symbolize all of the chaos of the past week. "This is killing her."

They both offered a nod, although Solomon was pinching at his thigh, slaughtering imaginary balls of lint.

"Listen. What we're going to do is, get a hold of Jude's ex-wife, and we're going to call him up and we'll get a whole paternity test---"

He was quick to interject. "No."

Mr. Sweeney seemed startled.

"Trust me. Judas lives in New York now. He has two children to worry about." The past didn't need to come back to haunt him even more. Even Solomon understood that.

"But, Solomon, don't you at least want to know if she's your child? I mean, I don't know if you're aware but it's not cheap or easy taking care of a kid. Trust me. It's not. You shouldn't have to be doing this if she's not yours."

"In all due respect, sir, ah... I feel at least semi-responsible. Jude and I ah, we didn't even know she had a kid. We stopped talking to her when we were ah..trying to quit."

Quinn who had been nothing but a prim, pretty daisy the length of conversation spoke up. "They both slept with her." It was the harsh, vulgar truth, but her father was already aware. "What he's saying is that it doesn't matter who she belongs to. He did the same thing Jude did. He doesn't think it matters who actually had the lucky shot." Even when it came to situations such as these, she somehow managed to keep a reasonable distance from candycoating and dressing history in frills.

"I think I can handle this, Mr. Sweeney. When I'm working I have two friends of mine that live nearby that can help me out. Both women that I trust. For once in my life, I want to take responsibility for what I've done."

Her father retracted in the chair, the rollerball legs squealing over the plastic strip that armored the carpet. "I'm glad, son. How much time do you need?"

Solomon and Quinn exchanged glances, and he simply hoisted one shoulder in an indifferent reply. "It doesn't really matter. I mean, since I got the letter, I've thought about it really hard. I've considered everything."

Three days ago, he had propped himself on the marble washing of his sink, and from his perch, he upturned his last gram of cocaine into the cyclone of the flushing toilet. The illegitimate pills speckled in his medicine cabinent and wedged beneath his mattress made weighted dents in his trash cans. He painted over all the garbage and memories rioting on his walls; bedroom, hallway, kitchen, living room. This had its benefits, too--the landlord would be pleased to see that he hadn't ruined the apartment. All of the scars were neatly dressed in a solid eggshell white.

Someone told him once upon a time that he needed purpose to clean up his life. This was purpose.

"Do you want to meet her right now?"

Once they shifted into the downstairs living room, the pulse of wading zombies had quieted to nothing but a dull drumbeat. Excess family were written in certified corners of the room. The junkies had cleaned the place of its aged alcohol. Trishia's aunts were numbly chatting on the couch, keeping a loose watch on the little girl that sat indian-style next to the the dormant television.

Her stockings were textured neutral-white, her Mary Janes strapped and fanned over by a quaint linen black dress that seemed so very Morman, with its long sleeves and foamy, high white collar. Her hair was pin-straight, and a pointless amber hair band kept the bangs segregated from the rest.

Quinn found a station against a wall on the other side of the room, and ignited a cigarette, despite the objections of glares nagging her from the elders. Mr. Sweeney released his fasten on Solomon's shoulder, and recoiled to the stairwell again, to try and bribe his wife out of the bedroom.

In cinema, in fiction novels, time seemed to stop and swell when something significant unfurled in front of its protagonist. But for Solomon, as he swaggered warily over her, it seemed to speed by like a nutty coke binge, he felt stars in front of his eyes and it didn't register that he had dropped to his haunches to level with her until a whole thirty seconds after the fact.

She was bent over a coloring book. But instead of scribbling bent lines inside of the farm animals, she was scrawling her own masterpiece on the blank inside cover. She didn't even pause to consider him.

"Hi, Madison," he tried to tame his trembling voice by congesting a gunshot cough into his fist. "I'm Solomon, I'm going to be taking care of you from now on. Ah, you can call me Sol, if you want."

These huge, moody black eyes dawned up at him, her mouth set in a plump line. Her skin was pale, but her eyes dominated her entire face. She was sickeningly petite and pretty. Maybe it was pride, but he swore she was the prettiest little girl he'd ever seen. She reminded him of a perfect china doll with her profuse lashes and the carnation glow haunting her cheeks.

"I'll call you Solomon," she chirped in announcement and then passively turned her chin away to continue coloring.

"That's my friend, Quinn. You'll see a lot of her too."

Once again, Madison looked up, but this time her gaze panned across the room. Quinn's hand shot up, she somberly waggled her fingers in a fraction of a wave that couldn't even blossom into a full dose.

"Oh," dismissively. Back to her picture.

"What are you drawing?" Both of his lanky arms curled in front of his kneecaps, wrists hanging loose.

"Aladdin. And Pluto."

He wasn't sure if she meant the planet or the Disney character, because when he strained her neck, she indicated a blue circle with two eyes, a fat nose and an arch for a grin.

"The planet?"

She gave him a firm look as though he were a moron. "Of course. What else?" She had an air of mute aristocracy to her.

Solomon wasn't at all deterred, because he was just as stubborn as the little girl, if not even moreso. "I have your own room waiting for you."

Suddenly, her attention span melted into something half-pleased, almost startled at the admission. She deadlocked onto his eyes, unintimidated, doubtful. "My own room? My own bed?"

He nodded, pinching at his pantleg. "Tomorrow morning we're moving your old bed into your room."

"I shared my room with mom."

"I know you did."

"You were my mom's friend?"

"Yes."

"How come I never saw you then?"

He hesitated for a moment. He thought about pleading through his eyes to Quinn, but second-guessed himself. "We're old friends."

"When am I coming with you?"

"Probably tomorrow. I think your grandma and grandpa want to be with you tonight."

She breezily corrected him. "Mom-mom and Pop-pop."

He slowly unwound to stand up, shielding his nervous hands in the womb of his pockets.

"Are you leaving now?" She tilted her scalp back all the way for her stare to take the stepladder to focus up at him.

"Yes. But I'm going to see you tomorrow," he reassured her.

"Oh." She went back to her artwork, pawing at offbrand, waxy crayons. "Goodbye, Solomon."

"Goodbye, Madison."

[greedy fly]

Kate,

I know you'll never have anything to do with me again, and I understand that. That's why I don't want you to ever reply to this, as you know it'd only be destructive to me at this point. I understand I hurt you, and you hurt me just as much, and it was a wild tug-of-war with no end in sight.

Remember once upon a time when you wrote me that letter for closure, and signed it with a stern: "Katherine?" Well, this is not for closure, because I refuse to close off any of my feelings when it comes to you (even if they're wading at the back of my mind, and your taste is always at the back of my throat) but it's something of that vein.

Things have changed significantly in the past month and it's been a rollercoaster ride. I doubt you remember Trish, because by the time I met you Jude was in rehab and I no longer went to her for junk. But she was an old friend of ours, who we both, at one point slept with when I was nineteen. She was diagnosed with Hepatitis C years back, I guess right when Jude and I started to see one another, and I haven't heard a word from her until recently. She died prematurely, liver complications, mostly, and she never did wean herself from drugs completely. She had a little girl named Madison, and she said in the letter that I was the father. Needless to say, I'm living with a six-year-old now. She's the prettiest fucking thing in the world, and she's very, very smart.

I'm getting a new place. I was saving money for awhile, I guess you know from when. I painted over all my walls and she sleeps in my bedroom. I took the couch, but she gave me permission to use her closet space. Quinn suggests that Madison and I should stay in the city, and get a three-bedroom condo. Half of me wants to take her to the outskirts of London and raise her English. The other part of me knows that Trishia, as little as I knew about her, probably wouldn't have wanted that.

I saw Jude today, and yes, my heart was in my throat especially when I asked about you. I was expecting him to have no tact and to tell me stories about some new lover who's a lawyer and wears three-piece suits with a flat first and last name. Some guy that your niece doesn't say talks 'funny.' But he didn't. He told me about how you taught a photo class at the community college, which of course, reminded me of the photos you used to take. Of course I'm still nostalgic for the days that I woke up with you hovering over me wearing mischief on your face and a camera in your hand, but I'm so very proud of you. I'm proud that your pictures took you some place. I always knew they were special, I always knew that you were special.

You're hanging in a Centre City gallery, but you're the only painting I refuse to sell, because it's priceless. My agent swears it's worth thousands, but I know better. You're everyone's favorite.

I hope and pray that everything is well for you, Kate. I hope your photos take you as far as you can go. I hope you find love, and I hope you always keep that brilliant smile. Oh, the things it used to do to my insides.

Always all my love,
Solomon Stills.

<font color="#EE0000" size="1">[ July 04, 2005 05:35 AM: Message edited by: bulletproof cupid ]</font>

[greedy fly]

The week had her exhausted, so on Sunday night, after the migration of all of her boxes and setting up her twin-sized bed with a pastel-blue comfortor in the alcove of his ex-bedroom, Solomon coaxed her from the backseat of his car. Her cheek layered angelically on his shoulder, her arms limp as he cradled her to the shallow thrum of his chest, and mounted the three flights of stairs.

She roused sometime around Monday morning, and since she was well-aware that she was allowed to put together her own outfits she sat lotus-folded in her crinkled clothes from the night prior in the centre of her bare-boned bedroom, tugging out the clothes drooling from boxes. She sprawled them neatly on the floor and ironed them meticulously with her hands, much to Solomon's amusement. Passing him, not even at waist-length in the threshold of the doorway, she took a strut into the narrow hallway and into the living room where the sliding glass door sat with sun beams struggling through passive-aggressive vertical blinds.

The couch was rinsed with a sheet and a spare pillow. There was an ashtray on the floor, and a lukewarm beer bottle seated adjacent. The cat slinked apathetically slinked past her in a phlegmatic stretch of lustrous, jet-black fur.

He watched as she had a personal tug-of-war fest with the handle, screwing her face up in contorted determination. He finally stitched it open to her with a bit of unease popping the veins of his wrist, because the door was perpetually stuck. It was then that she did the strangest thing. Silently, she needled her wrist outside, gauging the temperature. Satisfied with the fact that no goosebumps had riddled her moonwhite skin, and that the hot breath of the air was unforgivingly humid she peeked up at him.

"Thank you, Sol-o-mon." And she waltzed back into the room, dimming the door closed.

Moments later, she emerged in a denim skirt squared past her knees, frilly socks drooping unfortunately at her ankles, and the same leather-strapped Mary Janes as the day before. Her hair was finger-combed since she couldn't find her hairbrush as of yet.

"I need to brush my teeth." She announced.

"Hold on, I think I put your toothbrush in that one bag---" He swaggered into her bedroom, and began to rummage through the only bag that was free from the chambers of duct-tape and lidded boxes. Fisting a barbie-pink toothbrush with minute bristles, he wagged it at her. She had been loitering at the foot of the room.

In the bathroom, he flicked on the light, and he bent down to fit his hands under her armpits. Her arms spanned out obediently, and he hoisted her on the sink's ledge. "Be careful." Rinsing the brush underwater first for an easier sud, he squeezed out a crest pea-size for her from the tube of paste that was half-rolled. Madison wouldn't admit it aloud, but she liked to be picked up---it reminded her that she was still a little girl. Her mother never did it.

His toothbrush was white and blue, the bristles were fuller. Once she stabbed the inside of her cheek and began to scrub away at the teeny enamel, she studied him.

Once he began to graze over his teeth, she began to mimick him. Whenever his wrist twitched up-down-up-down, she went up-down-up down, consuming both rows of teeth in spearmint foam. Whenever he swept over his molars, she swept over her gumming, daintily. Whenever he spat, she craned over the sink and gave a weak spit, too. Solomon was grinning wildly when she stuck out her tongue after him, and sketching over the tastebuds. They both illuminated the air with an obnoxious 'aahhhh' anthem before punctuating it with a spit that came in unison. He cued the waterfall tap again, rinsing away the sink with a seashell-cupped hand.

"Are you hungry?" He asked her, drying his hand off on a long terrycloth towel, offering it to her to do the same.

"No, Sol-o-mon."

"You have to eat some breakfast. Do you like eggs?"

"Nope."

"Toast?"

"Nope."

"Ah... cereal?"

"Nope."

"You don't like cereal? What kind of little girl doesn't like cereal?!"

"Me!" She exclaimed proudly.

"What's your favorite food, then?" He challenged her.

"Gummi worms---the red-and-blue kind. French fries. And peas."

If anything, he wasn't flustered by the junk food, but the random add-on of 'peas.' A long, considering silence elasped before he plotted her back on the tile. "I guess we're going to have to go to the store then?"

"To the store! Can we walk? It's pretty out there."

"Sure, we can walk. But after we get back, and we're done eating. We have to unpack your boxes."

Her chin suddenly took a bungee-jump, painting her collarbones in a portrait of melancholy.

"I know it doesn't feel like home right now, Madison. But..."

She interjected with a quiet nod. "That's because Mom's not going to be here."

Solomon's fingers were braced on the light switch, but there was something about the swell in her voice that caught him offguard. His shoulders hesitantly tumbled into a lax slouch.

"I know. But I'm going to be here."

[greedy fly]

Solomon swung by the table before hers, and ironed out glasses and a plate of fries between a young couple. She caught his attention by wagging her paintbrush up into the air.

"I'm out of blue," she announced, with a melancholy sort of facefault.

He studied her row of watercolor paints (he wouldn't buy her Crayola, even though she was a little girl, she was meant to use the best of the best) and then all of the pages she produced that were still drying in the corner of her table. She propped both of her feet up in the booth, and swirled her soggy brush in the jar, the water was officially a diluted brown.

"Give me fifteen minutes, we'll get you some blue. It's almost time to go anyway." He ran his hands over his apron, throwing a sideglance over his other tables.

"I'll just use red for his eyes."

"Who's eyes?" He nodded at a girl fanning her arm toward the front of the restaurant, miming for a check.

"God's."

"Oh, okay." He didn't catch what she said, so distraught, he spun around on heel and made it a few feet before he literally cringed and backtracked with his molars set tight.

"Who's?"

"God's."

"God has blue eyes?"

"Well, God can't have brown eyes."

"Why not?"

"Because."

Both of his eyebrows leapt, but after lagging for a moment, he went back to work and paced around like a caged lion for his last fifteen minutes before clocking out in the back room. Untying the knot at the small of his back, a hook caught his off-white apron and he kissed pretty cheeks on his way out. Whenever he left at five o'clock the new waitresses would gossip with the clocking out waitresses about Solomon Stills. It had been a tradition for years, even with the new hires.

He changed out of his black dress pants and button-up shirt in the cramped bathroom, and he swung back into the booth opposite the little girl in a faded gray t-shirt with a chipped red logo and jeans.

"Let's see."

One at a time, she handed him her masterpieces to observe. He never just nodded and set it aside, he always had a comment.

"Wot's this in her hand?"

"That's a flower."

"I like the clouds in this one."

"That's what they looked like on Sunday."

"I know. Those are cirrus clouds."

Solomon neatly folded her pictures and tucked them away for safekeeping in his bookbag before he slipped from the booth and she jogged up, fastening her hand automatically in his.

"Are we taking the train, Solomon?"

"We have one more place to look at."

Suddenly Madison seemed strained, her mouth downturning, jerking down at his arm with a little drag of her legs.

"Again?"

"If we don't like this one, I promise this is the last time we'll look this week."

Spanning a hand over the glass door onto the mainstream bustle of the urban sidewalk, the overhead bell chirped on its string, and Sal tossed a distracted 'goodbye' to them from the register.

She waited for him to light his cigarette in the cup of his hand before she reclaimed a chokehold of his hand and let him lead her down the street through the congestion of people. The heat in the city was thick today, and she kept squinting her eyes to block out the sunlight, or streaking a makeshift visor over her brows.

"It's about three blocks from here," he informed her, as though she could judge such things. "It's on Locust street. Then we'll go to the store on South Street, cos I need some more paint too."

"Okay."

They gathered with a group of restless people at a crosswalk, waiting for the green 'go' sign to light up. He dropped to his knees in front of her, and set his bookbag on her shoulders, adjusting the straps so that it'd hug tight. She didn't at all seem startled, as this had already become a ritual when they took long walks. But this time, she pinched the cigarette from his mouth and unapologetically threw it on the ground. Solomon seemed shocked and paused for a moment.

"Why did yew do that?"

"You know why."

He turned around on his haunches and let her climb the ladder of his spine, twining her arms around his throat until she nearly strangled him, her legs winding his midsection. By then, the light had flashed and together they bobbed toward Locust. He compulsively upturned his wrist to gauge the time, and by roughly five thirty they arrived to meet up with a middle-aged agent named Sue in a tailored suit skirt. Solomon planted Madison on the ground and shook her hand beneath a lazy breed of trees.

It was just two blocks from a station, and a huge gray hospital and parking garage. The townhouses were old, and crowded with woven ivy and blended in with one another in a neat, narrow line of brick and red shutters. She was rambling on about how historic the houses on Locust street were, as she zipped up the three-step stoop, jangling keys.

Madison was pretending the steps were some sort of jagged mountain, and had her hands braced on the black rail as though it were some safety harness already mounted on a higher rock. And Solomon was nodding along at every pause, even though his eyes were blazing over the dusky windows, instead.

She opened them up into a serene little chamber. It smelled of mildew and dust. The floorboards were dark, and there were some actually missing, but there was a soft glow that reminded him of autumn.

"This is the living room, there's a bathroom right here, but without a shower. There's one of course, upstairs." Sue swung open a door to demonstrate. "The kitchen, very roomy. More than enough room for a table and everything else."

But she realized she was alone by the time she crossed the stove. Solomon melted onto the splintered wooden seat of a piano bench, and Madison hiked up along to join him. She stabbed at an ivory key, squealing in delight at the high pitch.

"Oh. They still haven't moved that out, quite yet. I think they're having movers come in at the end of the week so that they can put it in storage."

She was communicating with their backs, however, both the grown man and the little girl were too busy fawning over the piano to listen to her. She found it both annoying and endearing in one take, and decided to stake her shoulder against the opening mouth of the kitchen.

Solomon painted his fingers over the keys, and slipped off into Fur Elise, or rather, the fraction he remembered from it. There used to be rainy days back in Kilburn when he was a child, and Pierce would school him on instruments he had no interest in at the time. Madison didn't recognize the melody, but she did understand that because it flowed so well together that he was making music. Every now and again, she'd punch down a key when she felt it was appropriate. And he just grinned at her.

[greedy fly]

The past month has made full of drastic changes. I've been running around like a madman, tapping into all my bank accounts, looking for the perfect place. It was Madison that decided that Ninth and Locust was right for our nontraditional abstract family. After three days bobbing on the subway and skittering through the sticky summer streets of Centre City, we finally found a place that was in the very core of the city, and was actually affordable. It's a very, very old row of tall and narrow townhouses.

They're the last bits of the old eighteenth century city still left, no matter how many times the inside has been renovated, the structure is still classic. There's an attic and a basement, three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs. The walls are a thousand shades of white, and there are some things that will take manual labor to fix. But it really is aesthetic to look at. I can't help but to fantasise about how gorgeous it must be in the autumn.

Charlie left Lucy, it seems, and he needs a place to stay, and truth be told, Quinn and I were already discussing a potential roommate considering I want the basement. So it's going to be the three of us, plus one strange little girl.

The details about the townhouse, and who will be staying with us seem so very insignificant seeing as how I have a little girl. She's unintentionally cleaning up all the little messes I've made. In September she'll be starting first grade, but as of right now, she comes to work with me everyday and charms all of the waitresses. She prefers the booth in the far right corner, she orders peaches and french fries all day and she's always drawing pictures. She calls me Solomon, because she hasn't the faintest idea that I'm her father, she just thinks of me as her mother's friend. I try not to think of the possibility that I may not be the father, but even if I'm not, it'll still feel like a piece of my life as a wild nineteen-year-old is tangible, and can be carried around wherever I go.

We've developed rituals. On the way back from work on Fridays, we take Patco back to the apartment, and a block from home we'll celebrate the oncoming weekend and buy books. She likes it when I read to her, but she likes it even more when I make up stories as I go along, maybe because they all have ridiculous endings. She's incredibly neat and is very quiet. She seldom giggles, nor does she have the impulse to seek out other children to play. Sometimes she'll go to the parlor with Quinn when she's bored of the diner, and everyday she comes home with her hair done up and in mascara, but she doesn't throw a tantrum when I wash off her face. She just wears this passive aggressive pout. Cherrie is a real trip.

Madison loves to sit on the window sill in my old bedroom. She stared solemnly at the street for hours, especially on rainy days. Whenever I pass the room she'll point to someone down below, and tell me a story about them. She makes them all up, but they're always so very clever and intricate. For example, just last week there was a junkie named James that lives just upstairs to us. He was standing outside, pacing with his cellphone and she looked up at me with wide eyes and said:

"I think his name is Fred, and his mommy died when he was little too. But he likes to ride horses on Saturdays and his favorite color is macaroni."

Sometimes, I want to ask about Trish, but I always hold me tongue. She is a very private little girl, but I haven't honestly seen her shed one tear yet. I guess it's almost impossible for a six-year-old to grasp the concept of death. But I also think that she has more than an idea, she knows that she's not coming back and she sighs about it. She only compared me to her mother once, and that was to point out that her mother never tucked her in, but she would let her eat gummi worms whenever she felt like it. In a way, I think she was trying to flatter me and guilt-trip me at once. She's extremely clever, and I'm already a sucker for that. Tomorrow she'll meet Charlie and I'll have to see how that plays out before we all move.

I realise now that I've become somewhat of a man. I still stay up all night with my paintings, and though my brushstokes haven't at all been tame, my mind has. I've given up on drugs and as far as women go, I made a vow not to sleep around. I refuse to court and woo a girl the old fashioned way through tedious dinner dates and trips to the movie. As much as I've been dying for a kiss, I also know that I don't just want any old kiss anymore. I want it to be cinematic. I want to shape my life into something decent. But a girlfriend is the last of my worries, seeing as how I haven't had one in six months or more. I never want to be a boring man, I never want to lose my intensity. I think I've found a medium now where I can coexist with my own madness and still function like a normal human being. It's funny how that's possible when you remove narcotics from your meal plan.

My priorities are in order: girl, work, art. I am not of the lonely breed anymore, I'm not a walking ghost. I feel like there's a reason now, and that reason comes with huge brown eyes and glossy Mary Janes.