‘Thanks.’ I winked at the girl, then turned my head to Ferris ‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘To get drinks. Come,’ I took his hand, leading him to a supermarket across the street. ‘Beer or soda?’ I asked, approaching the drinks aisle.
‘Soda. Not really a beer guy.’
Go figure...
‘Ok,’ I reached for two cans of soda and dropped them on the ground not hard enough to break them, but enough to make the tin cans bend.
‘Are you out of your mind? What are you doing!?’ Ferris was almost in shock, probably waiting for some local authority dude to charge us with vandalism.
It was kind of funny watching my psycho seeing me as missing a few screws. But it wasn’t about that. It was about survival. About what I’ve been doing all my life.
‘Relax. I’ll pay for them,’ taking the sodas from the floor, I went straight to the cash register. ‘These ones are a little bent.’
‘Let me see,’ the cashier took both of the sodas to take a better look at them. ‘50% discount. It will be 55 cents for the both.’
‘Thank you,’ I handed him the money and walked out, followed by Ferris’s laughter.
He found it amusing. And it couldn’t be any other way for a man like him. But for me, it was something else. It was survival. Doing whatever you needed to stay alive.
‘Can you also do that with cars?’ Ferris went for a joke.
‘We can’t really afford cars down here, so no.’ I was letting him in on a truth he never could conceive existed. And who could blame him? He knew luxury all his life, so missing a pair of shoes or a piece of bread that could still your roaring stomach seemed impossible to him.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ reaching for his hand, I guided him through dark lanes until we ended up in an abandoned building. ‘We’ll have to go up like seventeen floors.’
‘What!?’ Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Come on, you look like you were born in a gym.’ I pulled his hand to join me.
‘I work out. But what you’re asking me is Rocky Balboa’s level,’ Ferris began laughing, but going up the stairs all the same.
‘It will be worth it. I promise.’
We were out of breath when we finally managed to reach the top, and even if it was almost below zero outside, neither of us could even move an inch.
Our heads simultaneously raised to look up at the purple sky, watching death and beauty fight on against the same black canvas.
The pollution rate was incredibly high. We could feel it in the thick air that we inhaled, our lungs almost fighting for each breath. I’d gotten used to the better oxygen levels in the Hills, and even though my body was barely getting accustomed to such stress, my brain wasn’t going to let me forget where I came from.
‘This is as amazing as it is deadly,’ Ferris took a seat on an old windpipe, lighting himself a cigarette.
‘That thing you just put in your mouth is as deadly as that cloud.’
‘Then I’m just racing towards my death.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Ferris.’ I knew why he said it. I recognized his pain, though that didn’t mean I could ever agree with the way he was acting. ‘You have so many things to look forward to.’
‘Name one,’ he asked me so suddenly that it made me believe that he was really thinking that he had nothing to look forward to, even though deep down I hoped he felt differently.
‘Help someone. Not giving them a glass of water kind of help. Like really help a person. Change someone’s life.’
‘I thought I already did that with you.’
‘I didn’t mean me. A random person. Like all the people we’re going to help if we manage to pull this off.’
