Book I: The Sub-Urban Brawl, Chapter 1

Jerry was tossing beanbags at a hole in a red wooden box when he notice them for the first time.

“Dad, what are those?” and he pointed over the shoulder of his father, who was also holding beanbags, at two towers in the distance with gray white clouds pouring from them into the early evening sky.

“That's Three Mile Island.”

“What?” “It's a nuclear power plant.”

“I think it's on fire with all that smoke coming out.”

“No, it's making energy.”

“By smoking?”

“To be honest, Jer, I'm not sure how it happens. It's very complicated. I'm sure you'll be getting to it in school in a few years.” He tossed a beanbag and it missed the box completely, tumbling in the October grass. “See, Jer, you're distracting me now. The only thing I really know about it is that one of the reactors or something blew back before you were born.” Another beanbag flew, this one hitting the bottom left corner and sliding off. “The biggest nuclear accident in US history happened right over there.”

Jerry still remembered his fascination that day, back when he was nine: how he had bombarded his father with questions he couldn't answer and then looked them up later in the encyclopedia on the bottom shelf in the living room. He found out nuclear waste can cause cancer, and so when one of the dogs died the next month and his mom cried and mentioned “cancer,” he blamed Klondike's death on those two ominous smoke stacks.

And tonight, twelve years later, he saw them off in the distance as he drove downtown for drinks with Lou, and he thought about his little paranoid self and how paranoid this little city must have been back in 1979 when the news broke about the busted reactor. He knew how wild people were around here when they would hear about a snowstorm coming. Close everything! Buy milk, bread, now! We may not see daylight for weeks! At least six times a winter this happened. How did these people react to news of a nuclear accident? It wouldn't have surprised him if everyone in a fifty mile radius bought those neon biohazard suits and wore them everywhere. In cubicles. At the gas station. To PTA meetings. As Jerry saw it, Three Mile Island pumped a looming cloud of fear over Harrisburg: fear of snow (though the winters were quite moderate), fear of terrorists (though what terrorist would target Central Pennsylvania, seriously?), and the biggest of all, fear of leaving Harrisburg. His mother would never come to visit him at school at NYU. She would say it was because Emily, his younger sister, had a school function, or because she couldn't possibly leave the dogs for the weekend, but he knew the real reason was she was terrified of riding the subway. Terrified she would board a train going the wrong way and a black hole would eat her.

Jerry was a junior now and each year he came back from New York for the holidays he unearthed new layers of fault in his hometown that hadn't occurred to him before. Now it was time to find fault in Lou, one of Jerry's best friends in junior high who had since joined the navy, who had been contacting Jerry every now and then since graduation and today he had finally responded. Boredom's the catalyst of all kinds of new things.

Jerry parked his mother's Volvo on State St., locked it with the remote Bing Boop!, and looked up at the capital building and its grandly lit dome, a beacon in the chilly December air, the symbol of this town, the center of this state. Yet, if you travel aways on the highway in any direction, nobody will know Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania.

“No! I thought it was Phili!” the rich New England kids would say on Friday and Saturday nights after meeting Jerry at NYU parties. He walked Second St. towards the line of bars.

Maybe the capitol building wasn't the symbol. Maybe it was those two fat smoke stacks across the river, still billowing clouds after all these years.


Christmastime in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is more or less just like any other time in the capital city. A little colder. Blinking lights hanging lazily above. Fewer faces on the streets, save for the children of the gutters, hanging on porches, choking on the failures of their fathers as they smoke their cigarettes and dream of futures on ESPN and MTV. To them, life is not as it should be. It is as it has to be. The present is inescapable and though the future is spattered with delusions of grandeur, deep down they know it will be more of the same. That- not their failing grades or overbearing parents -is the root of their anger; the cause of their neverending emptiness inside.

Friday, December 27th. The night sky was alive with stars. The breeze, biting yet bearable. Emmanuel Gonzalez leaned idly against a stop sign at the corner of Fourth and Kelker Streets in a section of the city wedged between the urban-chic of Harrisburg's political hub and the green riverside neighborhoods of uptown. The corner existed in a world too set in its ways to become a candidate for gentrification; too indifferent to become a cultural center. It was a breeding ground for the lost, the lazy, those who fed upon the dreams of our ancestors, leaving only vice and emptiness in its wake.

Emmanuel, or Manny as he was most commonly called, was your basic product of a broken home. His father was an abusive, alcoholic who left he and his mother without a trace four years ago, though the stench of his rum-riddled breath and the burning sting of his massive fist would remain dark memories engraved in both their minds. His mother, in the twisted logic of the abused, blamed Manny for her husband's abandonment, the level of impoverishment that followed, deeper than their already dire condition, and dumped upon him a sea of guilt that eventually thrust the boy out of the house and onto the streets.

Manny, disproving many a statistic on the issue, found his new home far more accommodating than the old. There was freedom from schoolwork and bedtime, shouting and pain. At fourteen years old, begging for food wasn't nearly as difficult as it would be for someone twice his age. Stealing, as well. This was summertime. Sleeping outdoors was often more of a comfort than not. Manny was graced with a silver tongue, one he had perfected as his only possible weapon against avoiding his father's wrath. He had a pair of hazel eyes, a caramel complexion and shiny black hair that placed him amongst the beautiful people of the world. It was charm and good looks that caught the watchful eye of Mr. Blik.

Blik approached Manny in a gray tailored suit and matching fedora. He was a towering figure, thin with leathery brown skin and the teasing smile of a well-fed snake. He took great interest in the well-being of Manny, offering him free room and board, limitless access to food and drink and companionship...even a job with substantial pay, which lands us where last we left the boy.

A jet-black Honda Accord with tinted windows pulled up to the corner. Manny had been through this plenty of times before. He would climb into the vehicle, receive half of his pay, pleasure the man or woman within the limits of their wallets or Blik's rules, hopefully receive the other half, and set himself up to do it all over again. Manny's skill at mimicking personal pleasure, faking desire and instilling it in others made him Mr. Blik's highest earner. This was his life and he was fine with it.

Manny climbed into the car, already thinking the thoughts that made him hard. Without taking his eyes off of the horizon, he said, “Two-hundred now, two-hundred after for a straight fuck.”

There was a cold silence. Manny thought that he might have to negotiate a new price or sooth the nerves of a first-timer when a familiar voice muttered his name. The boy reached for the door without a second thought, but a part of him could not help but look. It had been three years since he last saw him, and despite the thick beard and a scar across his left eye, his father had not changed a bit.

“What the fuck...” grumbled Manny as he tried to make a run for it. His father's massive hand grabbing him by the arm made that impossible.

“Wait!” his father hissed. His voice was just as Manny remembered it, but something in the tone was alien. Weaker, maybe. Tired? “You're coming with me, boy. There's something I need you to be a part of.”