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I was in a dense, thick fog that I couldn’t seem to shake off. When I closed my eyes, I felt myself drifting away from reality. No, I screamed in my mind. Enzo, don’t go! Stay awake! But the pull was too much—I couldn’t resist sinking further and further into the deep blackness, like Dante falling into Hell.
I was in a dark, cold room. When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but blackness. When my eyes adjusted, I realized that the room was almost completely sealed. There was a vent at the top, and a weak, tiny ray of light was falling through. I felt weak and dizzy, and my head was swimming in a cloudy sea. When I tried to stand up the first time, I stumbled and almost fell.
That made me open my eyes wide. This wasn’t normal. I was Enzo Fucking Lennox, for God’s sake, and I worked out every morning. I ate healthily, and I fucked a lot of women on the side to stay as trim as I could. This wasn’t something that should be happening to me—I shouldn’t be falling down.
“God,” I said under my breath. “What the fuck happened to me? Didn’t I get into a car accident?” As hard as I tried to remember, the memories I had of my time before the black box were hazy and fuzzy. For each thing I remembered, I knew there was probably a gap of five things I didn’t. My brain was turning into Swiss cheese before my very eyes, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Enzo,” a voice said softly. I jumped when I heard it, falling back down in a heap of pain on the hard floor. “Enzo, you’re going to be okay. Can you hear me?”
“I’m down here!” I shouted. My chest ached from the force of air pumping out of my lungs, and a wild, crazy sense of desperation welled up in my throat. No, no! I couldn’t be left here! Whoever had put me here had clearly made a mistake! I needed to be at work! I needed to be doing something important!
“Enzo,” the voice said again. It didn’t sound like anyone I knew. It was barely female, the kind of voice that almost sounds like it’s coming from a machine. “Enzo, where are you? I am looking for you, and I can’t find you.”
“I’m down here!” I yelled again. My lungs felt like they were going to burst and I had to close my eyes and steady myself against the wall even though I was already sitting down. Dammit! I couldn’t ever remember feeling this weak, or this useless. Tears of frustration came to my eyes, and I clenched my jaw. I couldn’t cry. Not like this, not now. I had to do something, anything, I had to get out of here.
I closed my eyes and lay down on the cool, damp floor. It smelled musty like no one else had been inside for years. When I moved my arms and legs, I smelt my own sweat. I realized that it had been days since I’d had a shower and that somehow only made the desperation and anxiety grow. I wasn’t at home; I wasn’t at work. Where the hell was I?
“Enzo, come on,” the voice insisted. “I don’t have time to wait around for you all day. Stop playing games and get over here, you little shit!”
I groaned as I recognized the voice. It wasn’t anyone I’d known for a long time. It was someone who I’d wanted to forget.
My mother.
When I opened my eyes, I gasped. Even though I still felt the cool concrete beneath me, I was no longer in that dank room. Instead, I recognized the apartment where I’d grown up on the South Side of Chicago. The same dull yellow walls, the same ceiling with the giant crack going from one side to the other. Most of all, the same brownish-gray carpet that looked like a pile of vomit had dried.
“Enzo,” my mother scolded. “There you are. I’ve been looking for hours!”
“I’ve been right here,” I said. I swallowed. My voice sounded funny, high-pitched, like it wasn’t really me. “I swear.” I looked around. The furniture was the same as ever: an odd floral couch with different cushions sewn in and a brown leather chair that was cracked and peeling with age.
My mother frowned. She was a thin woman with gray eyes and dark hair. When I was younger, I used to think she was the most beautiful woman in the world. But now she looked old, tired, and worn-out. She was so thin that she was gaunt, and her collarbone stuck out of her shapeless housedress. “Enzo, I don’t want any of your sass,” she said angrily. “You get in the kitchen and help your father before I take a strap to your lazy butt.”
I jumped up and nodded. Somehow, the mere mention of my father could always put me in a sour mood. I hated him. He was the worst man I’d ever met. He’d taken my mother’s youth, her money, her everything, and thrown it all away on drugs and booze. He couldn’t go an hour without being fucked up in some way, and I resented him for it. After all, this was why our family had become ruined. It was all his fault.
“Yes, Mom,” I mumbled as I pushed past her into the kitchen. The room was even smaller than I’d remembered. There was a linoleum floor that was ripped in two corners, showing the patchy and moldy wood underneath.
“Enzo, don’t you smirk at me!” My mother roared with surprising strength. I gaped at her—I wasn’t used to seeing her as anything but weak and powerless. “Things have changed around here, boy,” she said in the same sharp tone. “And if you try anything, I’ll find out about it! You mind your elders,” she added. “I wouldn’t want to have to come after you.”
A chill of fear crawled down my spine as I looked around for my father. He was nowhere in sight. The kitchen table, rickety and missing a chair, was heaped with newspapers and plastic bags, but I knew there was no food inside. Finding anything to eat in my parents’ house was always like searching for a needle in a haystack, and I knew it was damn near impossible.
“Dad?” I called out as I ducked my head outside. The backyard of the house was covered with a patchy lawn. Even though we technically lived in Chicago, it didn’t look much like a city. The area had once been a nice neighborhood, but years of drugs and gang activity had robbed the house of anything that could have once been considered beautiful. Now all of the houses were just as run down as ours was. I glanced nervously across the street. The house across from ours was missing both windows in the front, making it look like a gap-toothed smile of an old man. My shoulders slumped.
“Mom, I can’t find Dad,” I called as I walked into the yard. “Where is he? Did he say where he was going to go?”
My mother came out with her bony hands on her bonier hips. “No, smart-ass, he didn’t tell me,” she said in a snippy voice. “But you better make sure he doesn’t spend all of his money down at that damn club again.” My mother’s gray eyes flashed with anger. She was going blind, but I knew she could still see me perfectly. Even though that should have given me comfort, I couldn’t feel anything except fright when I thought of my mother and her intense, bug-eyed stare.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to go looking for my father, but I had a feeling that my mother wouldn’t be giving me any choice in the matter. “Do you want me to go find him?”
“How many times have I already asked you?” My mother’s face was pinched with rage and disappointment. “I swear, boy, you are about the dumbest son I could have produced,” she said as she turned away and slammed the door.
I swallowed hard. The day was hot, freakishly so, and I felt myself sweating under my thin T-shirt and work pants. Everyone always thought summers in Chicago were perfect because the winters were so bad, but that wasn’t true. It got hotter than hell sometimes, and just as humid. And I wasn’t even close enough to the lake to go swimming.
Dusk was falling, but the heat showed no sign of letting up, and my mouth was parched. I hated the idea of walking all the way to the strip club where my father spent most of his time, but I shivered when I glanced back at the house. I couldn’t go in there, not without finding him first. My mother would kill me.
With a sigh, I started trudging along the road. The heat shimmered on the pavement, and I felt it soaking up through my jeans, into my legs. The houses on either side seemed never-ending, and I shook my head, trying to catch any hint of a breeze. The air was dead still. I couldn’t even remember what month it was supposed to be.
“Enzo,” my mother called. “Enzo, hurry up! I’m not gonna wait for your slow-ass all day!”
I jumped at the sound of her shrill unhappiness. But when I turned around, there was no one there. Fear quickened in my heart, and I began to run forward, suddenly afraid of what would happen to me if I stopped.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I said and prayed under my breath as I jogged past the houses. My heart skipped in my chest, slamming against my ribs and making me feel as though I’d never be able to breathe properly again. “Please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.” The muscles in my legs were aching, but I forced myself to keep moving, to keep running, to keep going ahead in search of my father.
When I reached the end of the street, I had to lean over and rest my hands on my knees. I was breathing so hard that my chest hurt and my heart felt like it was going to leap out of my body and pound away down the street until I was dead and gone and there was no ounce of Enzo Lennox left in the world.