Let’s go, she said.
Out on the street, Slash unzipped his backpack, pulled out a fistful of woolly hats, put one on his own head, and handed the others to Greg, Charlie, and Sid, who was nearly unrecognizable now that he’d combed down his mohawk into a flat crust against his scalp.
Ice skating? said Charlie drily.
Not quite, said Slash.
He pulled the fold of his hat down over his face to reveal a full ski mask. Charlie unrolled the hat in her hands and felt her stomach drop.
Where’s Lem? she said.
Slash pushed the mask back up off his face.
Oh, we always leave one out in case we need bail.
What?
Extra precaution. Totally unnecessary.
No eye in the sky in the No Fly, said Greg cheerfully.
What eye? said Charlie frantically.
We’ll be long gone by the time they get here.
She looked over her shoulder. Behind her, she could see the neon Gas Can glow. There was still time to back out of…whatever this was. She didn’t need to know what was about to happen to know that it wasn’t good.
And you double-checked for security? said Greg.
Triple-checked.
_______, said Sid. All that copper _______.
Oh, they’ve got a camera. But only by the front door. And their alarm system says _______ right on it.
So? said Greg.
That security company went out of business in 2015.
Charlie was torn between trying to parse out what the hell they were talking about and just fleeing the scene before it became a scene.
Okay, what are we doing? she said finally.
H-o-l-d-e-n-s, Slash said.
What?
Your friendly neighborhood kitchen and hardware supply.
Isn’t it closed? she tried.
She wasn’t na?ve—she’d assumed they were planning to steal something, but for some reason a break-in felt different than shoplifting.
You don’t want to help? said Slash.
Not really.
Come on, I thought you were Team Guillotine.
I—
Charlie had found herself mulling over Slash’s postcoital tutorial in revolution in the weeks since she’d seen him, but she was unsure what to make of it. For one thing, if Slash was going “off the grid,” what stake did he have in messing up the grid for others?
I don’t see what knocking out a hardware store has to do with it, she said finally.
Knocking over, he said gently. We’ve got an easy job for you.
I won’t be able to understand you with the masks, she said.
I’ll tell you everything now. Bad form to talk on the job anyway.
You got a phone? said Greg.
Charlie nodded and pulled it from her back pocket.
Turn it off, he said.
* * *
—
They pulled down their masks before they got to the store. Charlie reached beneath hers to take off her implant, which crackled as it rubbed against the knit. The sign for Holden’s was still lit, though the store itself was dark, except for the red glow of its emergency exit. Slash stuck his arm deep into his backpack, then punched the glass panel of the door. It cracked but didn’t shatter and he hit it again and again until he busted through. He turned the lock on the inside and let them in. When they opened the door, the boys stared at each other for a beat too long and Charlie could tell they were saying something, but couldn’t see what. Greg and Sid pushed past her and Slash pointed to a barrel filled with snow shovels, then the security camera, then back at Charlie.
She took a shovel from the display and hoisted it above her head to block the camera. Slash nodded and went down the aisle after the other two. Her peripheral vision was compromised by the mask, and her arms were shaking from nerves and the weight of the shovel, so she couldn’t even look around much, though a few times she felt things crash to the floor. Surely they were making too much noise. Someone in the neighborhood would call the cops, wouldn’t they? Should she run, or wait until the police came and play deaf and dumb?
Before she could decide, the boys were running toward, then past her, arms full of pipes and boxed kitchen gadgets. She took off after them, assuming they were headed back to the house, but they made a sharp left off Vine instead, crossed York, and pitched into the shadows of the underpass. Charlie felt her heart beat out an arrhythmic protest at the sprint, but terror kept her moving until they reached the railroad tracks. Slash, Sid, and Greg slowed, dropped their haul on the ground, and pulled off their masks.
Shithead! Greg cried. I thought you said they didn’t have an alarm!
Who cares? We got out before the cops got anywhere close!
What’s wrong? said Charlie.
Slight glitch, said Slash. Turns out there was a burglar alarm. No big deal though.
My ears are ringing! Sid said.
The three of them continued bickering, but Charlie was no longer paying attention, was instead watching a shadow lengthen in the corner of her vision: an old man materialized, bare-chested beneath an open winter coat, his hair Einsteinian. Charlie froze, but Slash gave the man a smile of recognition and the two exchanged a complex handshake.
Hey, guys, Robin’s here! she thought she saw the man say.
At his beckoning, more people appeared at the edge of the darkness, most dressed haphazardly and pungent with dirt. A few chatted with the boys, or with one another, and Charlie could no longer keep up. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and an encampment took shape, corrugated metal and cardboard and blue tarps strung together like a motley block of row homes. Beneath her feet, a crush of broken glass, chicken bones, and orange syringe plungers. One by one, people ringed the pile the boys had made, selected some plumbing or a metal trinket, and receded back into the darkness along the tracks. When the pile was gone, Slash and Greg picked up the remaining haul—twin boxes that had been placed off to the side, obviously not up for grabs—and Sid motioned for her to follow.
You look like you’ve seen a ghost, said Slash once they’d returned to sidewalks and streetlamps.
My first robbery.
Burglary, he corrected.
Did that guy call you Robin?
Yeah, he said smiling. Robin Hood.
So you just steal stuff to bring to them?
That was…bonus stuff, he said.
He tapped the lid of the box beneath his arm.
This was what we went in for. But copper is a good ________
A what?
d-e-c-o-y.
Like…Slash thought for a moment. A distraction. Cops automatically assume junkies.
But won’t those guys get in trouble? Charlie said.
Nah, said Greg. They know to cross the bridge to sell it.
What if they say something?
All three of them laughed.
They don’t snitch, said Sid.
Come on, said Slash. Let’s get these back to the house.
* * *
—
They’re good guys, Slash said when they returned home, as if no time had passed. The guys by the tracks. Helped me out when I needed a place.
Charlie couldn’t imagine Kyle sleeping beneath an overpass, but then apparently a lot had happened since he’d become Slash. Greg opened the coat closet and wedged his box atop a tetris of about ten others. On the front of each, Charlie noticed a blond woman not unlike her mother standing over a steaming roast.
You stole a crockpot? she said, incredulous.
Pressure cooker! said Slash.
Two pressure cookers, said Greg.
He glanced back at the closet.
Well, now there’s ten altogether.
These can’t be worth anything! said Charlie.
Depends who you ask, said Slash.
You could’ve just walked into Meijer and bought one for like twenty bucks.
That’s where you’re wrong, rookie, said Sid. We—he tugged a strand of his slumbering spikes—cannot walk into anywhere and just buy a pressure cooker. You, maybe. Or Lem in a wig.
And we already used Lem in a wig, said Slash.
But what are you gonna do with them?
You gotta get out more, Slash said, laughing, and handed her a vape pen.
She took two long hits, and he led her toward his bedroom.
U.S. anarchist movements, history of
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