Pocket Lint

now

-1-

On May third, 1987, Penelope Adelaide Lamore gives birth to two healthy baby girls. The elder twin is christened Elysia, in honor of her mother’s mother. The younger twin is named Oneida, in honor of her father’s mother. Both girls are taken home six days later, having shown no signs of complication.

“My, honey, look at how sweet they are- little Ely’s already keeping her baby sister warm.”

-2-

On October seventh, 1991, the Lamore twins, age four, are taken out of preschool. Elysia’s dress is torn and one of her eyes is swollen. Oneida has blood underneath her fingernails. Their mother is on the phone with Miss Applebaum, with her brow creased and her hand on her cheek.

“Oneida was playing with a toy truck and one of the boys tried to take it from her. While I understand she had it first, what she did next was completely uncalled for, Mrs. Lamore- she reached out and dragged her nails down his cheek!”

“Oh.”

“And it doesn’t end there; when the other children tried to stop her, Elysia stepped in and fought them off- not with the savage intent her sister had just displayed, of course, but she was fierce. Sent three children to the nurse. It took the janitor, the principal, and the gym teacher to calm her down!”

“Oh.”

“All the while, Oneida was staring at her bloody nails…”

The woman trails off into silence. When she speaks again, her voice is hard.

“Mrs. Lamore, we can’t have Oneida in class anymore, you understand. Elysia, on the other hand—“

“No.”

“…No?”

“She won’t go without her sister.”

“Oh… Well, I’m sure if you explained the situation to her—I mean, she’s a really lovely girl—“

Penelope Adelaide hangs up the phone.

-3-

On December twenty-fifth, 1994, the Lamore twins, age seven, celebrate their first Christmas without their father. Penelope Adelaide decks the apartment out in decades-old tinsel and candles from the bargain bin at the local market. A star is placed atop the potted plant in the living room, and empty mugs with the remnants of no-name brand hot chocolate litter the counters, tables, and stove top.

This year, there are three presents- one for both of the girls, and an extra for Elysia, who won top honors in class.

Oneida glances at the brand-new notebook in her box, identical to the one in her sister’s. Elysia opens the big box— her prize— and lifts from it a soft, pretty-faced doll with a green silk dress, so new it still smells like the packaging plastic.

“I thought she looked like you,” Penelope Adelaide explains, watching the way her eldest daughter studies the doll’s long, shiny sable hair. The fancy eyes of an ocean-hued blue are the kind that close when the toy lies supine. “Do you like her?”

“Yes, mama, thank you, mama.”

Oneida holds out her hand.

“I want it.”

Penelope Adelaide frowns. Elysia frowns, too. Oneida glares.

“Give it.”

Elysia’s brow furrows. Penelope Adelaide decides that enough is enough, so at least maybe this Christmas will be Christmas for little Ely.

“Oneida, that’s not—“

The younger twin lurches forward and snatches the doll out of Elysia’s hands, untrimmed nails stabbing into the doll’s flesh.

“I said GIVE it,” Oneida barks, shaking the doll in front of Elyisa’s face. “You STUPID girl.” She throws it on the floor and storms off, slamming the single bedroom door.

Elysia picks the doll up off of the floor as though it is a wilting flower, all black petals and leaves. She turns it over in her hands with the care of a medical nurse. Fluffy, white stuffing bleeds out of punctures in the cloth torso like suspended puffs of smoke.

“I can sew her up for you, honey,” offers Penelope Adelaide.

Elysia nods, staring into the glassy eyes.

-4-

On March fifteenth, 1998, Oneida, eleven years old, brings a friend home from school.

Elysia doesn’t leave the bedroom.

-5-

On November twelfth, 2001, fourteen-year-old Elysia sits next to her bedridden mother, hands folded primly in her lap. They watch the small, ceiling-mounted television set portray frames of crime scenes and suspects, disasters natural and man-made.

“The world is sick, Elysia,” Penelope Adelaide mumbles out, brow furrowed and lips curled down. “It’s dying.”

“Yes, mama,” Elysia replies.

“Dying like I am.”

“Yes, mama.”

“So slowly…”

The news anchor speaks of violence in the slums, of drug busts and body counts.

“You take care of your sister, Ely.”

“Yes, mama.”

“I know you always do.”

A commercial comes on screen, using flashing lights and voluptuous women and idiot pain on tape to sell some sort of car. Some sort of shampoo. Some sort of beer. Elysia rises to her feet and straightens out her clothes. She tells her mother that it’s getting late and she has homework to do. She tells her mother to get some sleep.

She doesn’t tell her that Oneida sometimes doesn’t come home. She doesn’t tell her that when Oneida does, it’s with that man on TV from the earlier stills, the mug shots and warnings.

-6-

On January twenty-second, 2002, Oneida comes home at four in the morning. She stops short when she catches sight of her sister in the doorway.

“What,” Oneida spits. The expanse of flesh exposed by her outfit is lucid, blue veins trailing over her body like so many rivers on a map.

“You can’t keep coming home so late,” Elysia pleads, frowning.

“Too fucking bad,” the younger sister snaps.

“But, Oneida… They’re bad people—“

“They’re my people!”

“You’re getting hurt.” It is a quiet observation that’s difficult to draw with words, but she manages, just like she manages to make Oneida sneer.

“So what?” Oneida rolls her eyes as she brushes past her sister, into the apartment. “It’s nothing. Besides, maybe I like it. Ever think about that, you nosy bitch?”

“Oneida…”

“Shut the fuck up, already. And get my sweater from the laundry room, it’s fucking cold in here.”

Brows furrowed, Elysia does as told.

-7-

On June eleventh, 2002, the room is void when Penelope Adelaide Lamore draws in her last breath.

-8-

On January eighth, 2003, Elysia stands in the bathroom with a knife in her hand. In the mirror’s reflection, she sees dark circles under her eyes. She sees oily, limp hair. She sees the family portraits in the other room.

She closes the door. Oneida is not home until two days later.

-9-

On May second, 2003, Elysia is huddled in the back seat of a stranger’s car, balled up under leather coats and empty boxes. She clutches at her stomach compulsively, feeling for the hard lines of a small, plastic rectangle. She’s shivering as she smoothes down her shirt, as she pulls herself up and out of the car.

“Hey, ‘Neida, you look like shit.”

Elysia tries to smile the way she’s seen her sister smile, but she can’t. And the stranger notices.

“’S’matter? Petey bein’ a dick? Or not enough?” As the unfamiliar man chortles at his own lewd remark, Elysia looks away. The sight of his bare, scarred arms and the beastly dragon tattooed on his naked scalp make her want to cringe. She resists the urge to feel for the box nestled against her abdomen.

You’re just a kid.

No, please, I need to—

“Where’s…” She clears her throat, wrinkling her nose at the rusty sound she had made and what a rookie mistake that was to make. “Where’s Sidoh?”

“In the lounge, he just walked in there with…”

She sees the word “you” on his lips but not in her ears and knows she’s fucked up before he realizes that she’s lunging forward with her fist aimed at his face. He slumps against her as his consciousness flees, and she carefully lowers him onto the ground.

What makes you think you can help us?

A door opens and a man walks out, the lines on his face telling about forty or fifty years’ worth of stories. His pitch-black hair is slicked back, a few tiny lines of the brightest white highlighting the curve of his head. His simple, navy suit and designer shoes are horrendously incongruent with the backdrop of the warehouse around him.

What makes you think you can help us?

His eyes bulge when they land on Elysia, and she grimaces. This is the man they showed her in so many covert photographs, and he was just in the other room with her… sister.

Except he doesn’t know that.

“What is this?” He growls, advancing. “Who are you?”

“Sidoh,” she whispers, but she knows that’s not good enough, so she says it again with more force than she had hit the first lackey with, “Sidoh!”

He stares at her with a kindred animosity, face contorted into an uncomprehending anger. Then he bellows “ONEIDA!” and her sister comes out, wearing the same school uniform she is except it’s folded in all the strategically wrong places.

“What’s the fuckin’ ruckus— oh, shit.” Oneida’s eyes narrow, slits of azure Elysia has almost forgotten. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m…”

There is a line that connects her to safety taped to her stomach, but the length it stretches is much too far for comfort. There is another line, another connection that started right next to it, severed by neglect and discomfort and the ever-present personal demons. There are too many loose ends.

There is her sister, baby Oneida, standing before her.

“I’m here for blow, obviously,” Elysia icily replies, chin held high. “Why else would anyone come to this shithole?”

Oneida snorts, putting her hands on her hips.

“As if. I mean, first of all, you’re a by-the-book bitch. Secondly, where would a Bible girl like you get the cash? Don’t kid yourself—“

“I was thinking of the other ways to pay, baby sister. How about you zip it and let the grown-ups talk?” Ignoring the younger girl’s growl, Elysia turns her attention to Sidoh. “Well?”

He approaches her with a silky gait, taking measure of her body with narrow eyes. His glance flicks back to Oneida, and he chuckles.

“Twins, huh?” It sounds more spoken to himself than anything else. “This could be a treat.”

Calloused hands reach for her, stroke her hair. The space between them is filled with a single step. Elysia is breathing hard. He moves to stand behind her, palm rubbing her hip, fingers pulling back her hair. He whispers in her ear, “it’s a deal.”

“Sidoh!”

He laughs.

“Oh, Oneida, you two even sound alike… I don’t think your big sister would mind you joining in, you know, and besides…”

His hand slides beneath her shirt and— oh, SHIT— grasps the metal box, tearing through the tape and holding it up triumphantly.

“… she’s wearing a wire.”

Elysia moves before they do, snatching the recorder out of Sidoh’s hand and diving to the side as he shoots. With the first report, doors and doors open with battle-ready criminals already on the edge. The guns break out. In the confusion and chaos, Oneida is caught in the crossfire.

Before her escape, Elysia catches sight of her little sister and the bullets that pierce her chest, sanguine whorls staining the white cloth of the school-sanctioned blouse and the concrete she collapses upon.

Elysia runs. She is able to hand the tape to the police by midnight.

She turns sixteen.

-10-

“You’re just a kid.”

“No, please, I need to—”

He shook his head.

“You’re too young.”

“She’s my sister.” I want to help my sister. “We look exactly alike— you can use that.”

“It’s too fucking dangerous, especially—“

“You’re not making any headway in the investigation.”

Even now, she remembers the blow the statement made; the wide eyes and the reactive glares. The truth of their failure. The fact that the public was getting rowdy and the bodies were piling up and they needed to do all they could to end it.

“You’re a twin, so what? He’s not exactly stupid, you know, or we would have caught him by now.” Bitter captain, lying through his teeth. “What makes you think you can help us?”

She didn’t think she could help them, not one bit; it was the other way around. She thought they could help her. Help Oneida.

And look how that turned out.

-11-

On May tenth, 2003, for the first time in nineteen years, apartment B206 in the Erutus Building is put up for rent.