Free Somebody Up There Hates You by Hollis Seamon

right between those round breasts. I must almost pass out, I swear, because next thing I know, she’s standing up and wiping her chest with a Kleenex. Looking sort of surprised, but also kind of pleased with herself—and maybe with me. She smiles at me, anyway. I reach down and tuck my shriveled, happy little Bingo back into my jeans and zip up.
    She rolls me out of the alley, and I’m a melted puddle of gratitude and can’t say a thing—like my throat’s been paralyzed. We hit the street and suddenly it’s all noise and people pushing and yelling, and I don’t know if she’s taking me back to the bar or somewhere else, and I don’t care because she can take me to hell itself at this point and I’ll be happy. I just close my eyes and go with it.
    Then we stop. I feel a hand on my shoulder. Not hers. Much too big and heavy to be hers. I open my eyes. We’re in the light from the open doorway of the bar and there’s someone leaning over me, breathing smoke and booze into my face. Holy shit. I’ve been caught by the devil himself.
    â€œWell, well. What have we here?” Sylvie’s father is standing over me, swaying and red-eyed and giving off heat like a chimney. He reaches down and tears my mask off. His spittle sprays onto my face. “Could it be? Our little wise-ass punk? Out of the hospital? Not so sick, after all? You lying fake.”
    I shake my head. “Just out on leave, sir,” I croak out.
    Marie bends over my head and tries to push the man’s big hairy hand off my shoulder. “Leave him alone,” she says.
    He shifts his focus onto Marie, and I feel his hand tighten. “And who is this?” He breathes fire all over us and then he gives one horrible laugh that turns into a kind of sob. “Little bitch. Out here, your tits hanging out.” He turns his eyes back to me. “You forget about my baby, Richard? You out here fucking around with whores while she—”
    Marie’s smack makes a bright red mark on his face. “Get out of our way,” she says.
    Sylvie’s father grabs at her arm and she shrieks, and I make a grab for him, too, shoving both hands into his chest and pushing as hard as I can. But the man is immovable. He’s crying and spraying spit everywhere and he’s almost, I can hardly describe it, he’s howling.
    And then, I don’t know, there’s a million people coming toward us, and Phil’s in the lead. He leaps on Sylvie’s father’s back and they go down, and then I can’t see a thing except for a whole bunch of feet and rolling backs. Marie pulls my chair out of the way and she sits down, hard, on the curb and sighs. “Nice friends you have,” she says. And then she stands up and puts one hand on my head. Her hand runs along my bald scalp, feeling the bones of my skull. She bends down and looks, real close, at my eyes.
    I can feel it, her staring. There’s no mask now. And I know that I got no eyebrows and no eyelashes and that I look like a reptile. And I know she’ll be completely disgusted and she’ll never, ever put her mouth or her hands on me again.
    Marie reaches down and touches one finger to my wrist. My hospital bracelet is right there, out of hiding. She’s real quiet, and then she says, in this scared kind of voice I never want to hear again, “Jesus. Tell me it’s not AIDS, okay? Just tell me that.”
    I want to close my eyes so I don’t have to see her, but I can’t. Got to meet people’s eyes, Mom always says. Look ’em in the eye. So I look right at her, round face, pink hair falling down now, spikes all slumpy. “Not AIDS. Cancer. Not catching. No worries.”
    Doesn’t matter, catching or not, she backs away. “Oh, man,” she says. “I just . . .” She wipes her hand on her skirt. And then she’s gone. Running down the street, weaving between costumed people,