Free Milk-Blood by Mark Matthews

the blood.”
    He paced fast and slammed his foot down with each step. The bam bam bam bam of his foot sometimes stopped the voices. Talking to himself blocked them out and turned them into white noise static. But they kept coming, relentless. The voice was mostly his dad, still stuck inside him ever since that day in his momma’s basement, but there were other noises too. The little boy Oscar who had nobody to play with. Oscar said he wanted to be like the boy from James and the Giant Peach who was saved by magic after his mom and dad were killed. But not him. Not Oscar, he had nothing.
    Jervis listened to the boy, but couldn’t always hear since the tears of the buried mother made noise all the time. He heard her crying for her daughter. The sound was sharper than any piece of glass he’d ever stepped on. And the little pieces got stuck in his skin just the same.
    “When are you going to stop that?” Jervis asked the mother.
    “Not until she’s with me.”
    “Why do you think she wants to be with you?”
    “I grew her. She gnawed at my insi des and clawed her way out. I made her out of nothing and gave her life.”
    “I put her inside you, she’s my girl, she’s not all yours.”
    “ You poisoned me.”
    “I gave her to you .”
    “The part of her that is sick was from you. You are a fucking red devil.”
    Jervis would have raised a hand and smacked her when he he ard that, but she wasn’t there, she was just a noise, not a sight. Just a mouse scurrying on the floor that he could never find. He was done talking with the voices, but they weren’t done with him:
    “You said you’d bring her to me. Where is she?”
    “ His dad died, but James got saved by a Giant Peach, who will save me?”
    “ I will get her myself, get in someone’s head and get her.”
    “Jervis, Jervis. Jeeerrviiiisss”
    “You an evil man Jervis. Bad. BAD. A devil. A red devil.”
    Jervis paced and scanned the street looking for something to help him stop the voices. Two dogs fighting inside your brain, and you control who wins, the one you feed the most. That’s what they told him once. The mental health team. Well, the voices won’t win. He’d pace and talk and mumble them away, or get some dope or get something.
    Get my girl.
    But h is girl from across the street wasn’t stopping to see him anymore, so he looked for others.
    There was a noise from several houses down that he knew was real. He turned and saw men on the porch. The words were loud, angry. A door slammed, and a man left the house dejected. His head sunk to the ground and he walked defeated. The shroud of smack surrounded him as he approached. Jervis stepped up to greet him on the sidewalk.
    “You spare some change?” Jervis asked.
    “ Fuck off. You think I got change?”
    “ Well, one can never tell. What you looking for?”
    “Nothing. Never mind old man.”
    “ Old man,” Jervis mocked, “Well, I may be old but you look same as me. You scrap?”
    “S ometimes scrap. Good money, but I got no way to transport it.”
    “G ot some scrap inside.”
    “Oh yeah. Maybe I got a guy who can come get it. What you telling me for?”
    “Can’t get the pipes out. Maybe you can help. We can split it.”
    “L et me see what you mean. Maybe. Maybe.”
    Jervis saw the look on the man’s face. I can take advantage of him, I can punk this guy , the man was thinking.
    They walked to the house, and Jervis could tell the man had been to prison. He could tell by his walk. By the way he hung his head. By the distant look in his eyes. The man stepped into the house cautious. Waiting for others to be there. His nose crinkled as if the air was about to make him sneeze.
    “Bunch of pipes in the basement. Copper. Can’t get it down.”
    They stepped in further and the air of the house en gulfed them both. Grey walls were like intestines and they squeezed and squished them in. Thick ashy air was digesting them both, and tiny bits of their flesh were being added to the dead