The sun had an equal in the roaring flames that engulfed Hari’s Grill during the early hours of the morning. The fire started before most were awake, and it continued well past dawn.
Piles of ash amassed where the smokehouse once stood in the backyard, now turned to rubble. All evidence pointed to the smokehouse as the source of the fire. Then, the flames traveled to the main building—either as embers on the wind or across the dry, flammable grass.
Smoke rose into the sky, smelling more like charred architecture than the usual savory scent of smoking meat. The timber of the main building burned until all that remained was the stone foundation. The few pieces of wood that were left crackled as the fire consumed it—destroying the remnants of a table, or the counter, or something else. It grew harder to tell between the char and smoke.
The chain-link fence that bordered the area was largely unaffected by the fire. A stone chimney also still stood, as did a small oven burnt black and a few pots made of cast iron. However, these remaining items only made the place look more like a junkyard littered with refuse.
To call Hari’s Grill a building was perhaps too generous; it had essentially been a shack propped up by sticks. It was a miracle that it hadn’t burned down earlier.
Spade watched a smoldering ember swirl in the wind in front of him. The flames were dying down to a low simmer, with so little fuel left.
Toby didn’t lie. When he'd said that “the old man has a few tricks up his sleeve,” he meant it. Spade should have known. It was so obvious in hindsight. Toby was an honest, straight-forward man. He had pretty much told Spade his intentions. But what could Spade have done to stop Toby? Shoot him?
No, it would be petty. If it got around that Spade shot Toby the Hound, he would be an outcast. There was a code of honor in the Gate. You didn’t shoot great men like dogs. Spade would have to think long and hard about how to retaliate against such a legend.
Legend. Sneaky old man, more like it.
Silas fell to his knees on the sidewalk. He took his cap off his head in a show of grief. His face crumpled as the fire devoured the remnants of the front door.
“I had dreams for this place,” Silas muttered while shaking his head. “Damn, watching this, it feels like losing an old friend. Or someone important.”
Spade crossed his arms, unmoved by Silas’s tears. “What idiot builds a place like this out of wood?”
Silas took a second to compose himself. “It’s an old building. Well, was. Wood’s a cheap material. And plentiful.”
“Burns good too,” Spade added. “Seems really stupid when there’s a smoker always burning.”
“We both know the smoker didn’t start this damn fire.”
“Way ahead of you,” Spade said grimly.
Silas inhaled deeply. “If only we got here earlier.”
“It wouldn’t matter.” Spade scuffed the toe of his boot against the sidewalk. “It was already gone by the time we found out.”
“Maybe we could have saved something if you helped. We lost twenty minutes trying to get the truck to start.”
“Maybe if you did something useful instead of drinking and praying, we wouldn't have been late in the first place,” Spade shot back, hardly in the mood for Silas’s accusations. “It’s your truck. What do I know about that stuff?”
Earlier, the truck had needed Silas’s ‘gentle’ encouragement until it would start. This involved Silas opening the hood and leaning over the engine, while cursing and running his hands through his thin hair. When that didn’t work, Silas kicked it in the side a few times. Finally, Silas slouched in the driver’s seat. He opened the console and pulled out a bottle of stale, lukewarm beer. He started drinking. With his eyes half-closed, he drifted off into a stupor.
Spade sat in the passenger seat the entire time, watching in disgust. What an unbelievable waste of time. They could have already been walking to Hari’s Grill, but Silas would rather feel sorry for himself.
“Start it again,” Spade had barked.
Silas shook himself awake. The bottle teetered in his lap, spilling beer on his leg. He turned the key in the ignition. To their surprise, its engine puttered to life. The radio came on, emitting static into the cabin, before Silas switched it to another station.
A small miracle the truck had started at all, but in line with Silas’s usual streak of misfortune. Silas had the sort of unfortunate luck where he often stumbled onto riches—and promptly lost them. He experienced happy accidents and fortunate coincidences only in the direst of circumstances, when the luck was least helpful.
It was an unreliable kind of luck, as likely to get Silas into trouble as out of it. Spade had seen it in action many times before. Silas would be in the middle of a card game and deeply in debt. Just as Spade thought all was lost, and Silas was truly fucked, Silas’s luck would spark. The tides of the game turned in Silas’s favor. He had a hot streak and made hundreds of kraks.
For a brief moment, it seemed that Silas might dig himself out of the hole—only to be buried by a crushing string of losses.
Or, in this case, for Spade to work his ass off to get Silas the barbecue—and then it all burned down. Spade was tired of being involved with Silas and his misfortune. Maybe he had been better off as an orphan than this hapless drunk’s partner. After all, he took the hits, not Silas.
Although Spade was young, his body often ached, his head the focal point of the splitting pain. It forced him to stoop like an old man riddled with arthritis. His body was falling apart, and he couldn’t take it anymore.
The fire continued to devour Hari’s Grill. Silas took in everything he had lost with an unwavering stare. The reflection of the fire lit the glassy surface of his pupils.
Even if the truck had started immediately, it would have been too late. The fire had burned for hours before they found out. There was nothing they could have done.
“You’re right,” Silas admitted. “You’re the reason I ever had this place. I shouldn’t be ungrateful.”
Spade accepted the apology with a slight nod.
“I’m going to look at something,” he said.
Spade circled to the back of the main building by the sidewalk to get a better look at the destruction. He entered the backyard through a broken section of the fence, stepping into a haze of dark smoke.
Coughs racked Spade’s chest. He futilely waved the smoke away. His eyes burned as he squinted, trying to get a good look of the backyard through the fumes. A gust of wind parted the smoke, enough for him to see the yard.
Judging from the charred line that led from the smokehouse to the main building, someone had likely poured gasoline on the grass. Boot prints cut into the mud, bunched around the smokehouse, creating puddles.
Someone. As if Spade didn’t know who did it. The sneaky old man with his gas can tip-toeing around while it was still dark. Spade almost wanted to laugh at the image, but bitterness soured the humor. That sneaky old man had turned all of Spade’s hard work into nothing more than smoke.
Spade’s eyes stopped on the concrete stoop where he and Ashe sat the other day. He had to admit that, same as Silas, he also had dreams for this place. This could have been a place for him to get away and be with the people he cared about—without the oppressive leer of certain bastards.
“How’s it look?” Silas called out from the sidewalk.
Spade left the yard and returned to Silas. “There’s nothing left..”
“I can’t believe it,” Silas said. “This place has been here forever, since I was a boy. And now it’s gone. Just like that.”
Spade stared at the ground, his thoughts wandering. How bad did this make him look? Would people judge him for it? They barely possessed the place for a day before Toby poured gas all over it.
Spade didn’t have the means to retaliate. Raw welts reminded him of why he wasn’t strong enough to confront Toby directly. Spade had tried to go behind Toby’s back, but clearly he wasn’t smart enough to keep his actions from backfiring. Toby had the cunning of a fox and the resilience of an old hound who had survived many years in the Gate.
What did Spade have over the old man? Youth? Anger? No, the old man’s patience and experience only benefited him. Spade wasn’t good enough. He had been foolish to try.
“I gotta do something,” Spade said to himself.
“There’s nothing to be done. It’s all gone. Time to let it go,” Silas said, misunderstanding Spade’s meaning.
“No, I mean, how do guys like Toby get so good at this shit? Where do they learn it?”
“The streets teach some hard lessons, kid. We’re all trying to survive. For the most part, that means being strong or clever. Sometimes, it means knowing when to quit. You got me?”
Spade’s jaw tensed. “I won’t quit.”
“Then get stronger, kid, because you sure aren’t getting any smarter.” Silas knocked on Spade’s head playfully. “Yep, it’s hollow. No wonder you can take so many kicks to the head.”
Spade pushed his hand away. “How do you get by? You’re no better than me.”
Silas’s lips quirked into a smile, momentarily softening the grief and despair of his expression. “Must be luck.”
“…fuck. Your luck is terrible, too.”
Silas laughed, but his bleak mood returned as a shadow across his face. “This was… this was never about a stupid bet, you know that? I’m not one of those guys who gets all flustered about what other guys owe me. I owe money to all sorts of people, and vice versa. If we took it all seriously, well, half the Gate would be dead.”
“Then why did you push me to do all this? Everyone thinks I’m an idiot now.”
Silas’s fingers toyed with the hat he held, giving him an excuse not to meet Spade’s irked gaze. “It was for … for Hari. I thought I could do something good with this place.”
“And who’s that? Your boyfriend?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Would’ve made him my husband if I could. We loved each other, even though I was never worth it. I only ever gave him trouble, made things harder for him.” Silas choked, struggling to speak as tears welled in his eyes. This loss of words was uncharacteristic for the man who usually had so much to say.
“Why did you name it after him?” Spade prodded. He knew it was best for Silas to keep talking, since words came as naturally to the man as breathing. Perhaps Silas wouldn’t cry so much if his mouth kept moving.
Silas wiped his eyes before responding in a slow, measured tone. “Hari was a gambler. Not much of a criminal. He wanted me to go legit and run a place like this, but it didn’t happen. I wanted to give Hari the dream I could never give him when he was alive. So, I named it after him. Now it’s gone in the blink of an eye.”
The whites of Silas’s eyes were an inflamed pink, the veins lines of bright red. Tears irritated his eyes even more, wringing out his tear ducts like dry sponges.
“This life ain’t worth it,” Silas said. “The dead ones are lucky. We’re the ones scrambling to make things happen. But everything we build is like a castle of sand, swept away by the surf. Nothing ever lasts.”
It dawned on Spade that Silas’s grief was for much more than the burning wood and furniture of a bet gone wrong. Grief for someone lost. Spade couldn’t relate—at least not yet. As much as Spade liked to think he loved nobody that way, it simply wasn’t true.
Knight and Spade had always been together, from the dingey orphanage to the tunnels of X, but Spade knew this wouldn’t always be the case. When they had first arrived at X, Knight appeared to get better, but this didn’t last. Knight’s sickly pallor returned with each day, and coughs wrenched his shriveled lungs. Spade faced a painful future, one without his brother. He had never felt so alone.
Spade spoke up, his tone thoughtful. “Weird… to think someone loved you that much.”
“What does that mean?” Silas asked in offense.
Spade shrugged. “You're old.”
“I swear, kid, you act like I’m a thousand years old. I’m forty-two. And what’s wrong with old guys being in love?”
“It’s not that.” Spade clammed up, unsure of how to express the unease rising in his gut.
Silence stretched into minutes. What remained of the main building fueled the dying fire, turning it into soot and ash.
Hari’s Grill was no more.
“C’mon. It’s time to go,” Silas said. “There’s nothing to save.”
Nothing to save, and nothing else to say. A heavy, mournful mood crushed any desire for further conversation. Silas and Spade returned to the truck parked in the road nearby and made the puttering drive back to X.
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