Free Dreamer by Steven Harper

yelled, and something warm spattered my leg. Then he flopped down to the mattress. I kept my eyes shut. My teeth were clenched so tight my whole head hurt.
    “Shit,” Jess muttered. “He fainted.”
    Jess wet a washcloth from the bathroom, wrung some water over the jobber’s face, and then wiped my leg. When I opened my eyes, the guy was up and dressing. He had a big smile on his face.
    “Any time you boys are up for that again,” he said, “I’ll pay double. Glory.”
    He gave me and Jess another twenty kesh each and left. I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes. Seventy kesh.
    “What the hell happened?” Jess almost whispered, staring down at the kesh in his hand. He was still naked.
    “I don’t know.” I pulled my clothes on. “Look, is that it? Are we done?”
    “We’re done, man, unless you want to file for taxes.”
    I didn’t laugh. I just left.
    Now I’m in my room. Mom’s getting ready to go to a meeting. Her whole life is meetings. She’ll probably want me to go and take care of the little kids, but I think I’ll tell her to fuck off.
    Well, probably not like that. I love Mom and all that, but sometimes she’s a real pain. She’s always dealing with some neighborhood disaster at some neighborhood meeting. She acts like the whole place will fall to pieces if she doesn’t keep it up.
    I wonder what she’d say if she knew what happened? I bet she’d throw a cat. So how the hell am I going to tell her about the money?
    I’ll save it. If I get enough, maybe I can buy us passage of this rockball and we can move someplace where the wind doesn’t smell like fish.
    Huh. The only way to get that kind of money is to keep tricking, and I’m not doing that again. Not in a hundred years.
    Mom’s coming. Better sign off.
                 
                                              DAY 8, MONTH 10, COMMON YEAR 987
                 
    I did it again. I shouldn’t have, probably. What if I got caught? It isn’t just the Unity, but the houses, too. The houses have it all staked out—who can trick where, what they can do. And they beat the shit out of anyone who bugs in on their territory.
    Anyway. I started off down in the market with my flute, not planning to trick. It was a good day—got two kesh in less than three hours. But every time someone dropped a coin in my hat, I kept thinking about how I got seventy kesh in twenty minutes.
    Jesse was tricking a ways up the street from me. He saw me and gave a little wave. A couple minutes later a guy—not the same jobber as before—walked up to him. They talked for a minute, then went off together, Jesse still limping. I looked down at the little coins in my hat. Then I thought, The hell with this.
    I collapsed my flute and shoved it into my pocket, then sort of casually walked over to the spot where Jesse had been standing. I left my hat where it was. Someone grabbed it and ran, but I didn’t care. My heart was beating hard enough to choke my throat. I leaned against the wall and hooked my thumbs in my pockets like Jess did. After a second I realized he did that to tighten his pants across his crotch. I felt like everyone was staring at my privates, but I didn’t move my hands.
    It ain’t sex, I told myself. It’s money. M-O-N-E-Y.
    My mouth dried up like a raisin. I didn’t know what the rules were. Do you look at people? Tell them you’re for rent up front? I should’ve asked Jesse.
    Just to make things harder, the voices started whispering at me again. I concentrated hard, tried to make them go away. I can never quite make out what they’re saying, and it’s scary. Sometimes they come at night, and that’s the worst. It sounds like ghosts breathing on me.
    And then this woman walked up to me as easy as you please and said, “Glory. You look like you’re lost.”
    Whisper whisper whisper whisper.
    I started to deny it, then realized the woman knew I wasn’t lost. What should I say?