The housefather liked to tell them that they were meant for big things. “Listen up, fellas,” he’d say, exhaling a current of recycled menthol, “every single one of you is destined for greatness. You’re special, you’re the future of the world, you’re bright and shining stars, and the best thing you can do for yourselves is to be the best version of yourself that you can be.” Then his gaze would wander, glassy and fading into the backdrop of the city while his charges heaved broken bottles and plastic casings into warped, half-melted garbage bins.
Saint Augustine’s was surrounded on all sides by urban sprawl. It sat on the fourth floor of its building, trapped between a greasy meat-shop, cramped apartments downstairs, and a connecting storage room that none of the students were allowed to enter. The spaces further upstairs were abandoned—a series of gutted financial offices, dingy and dank—but they had the remnants of real windows, so it was the best place to get a view of the outside. At night, when the rest of the boys were asleep, Sixty-Seven liked to creep up through the maintenance shaft to watch the color-leeched rain slick the walls of the tiny alley below.
The Academy had been Sixty-Seven’s home for his entire life, ever since a passing delivery man had heard him squalling and fished him out from the belly of a decommissioned trash compactor. Saint Augustine’s had taken him in out of the kindness of their heart—as well as a keen desire to nurture his potential, as the Headmaster was so fond of reminding him—and he was forever grateful for their attention and compassion. (They hit him harder when he wasn’t grateful). The staff prided themselves on the school’s devotion to its students, which meant a great deal of their time was spent extolling the virtues of the patented Saint Augustine approach to education and self-betterment. In between lessons the boys stacked unmarked boxes and scrubbed the Academy’s stained floors. One of the others, Fifty-Two, had told them a story about the storage room: that they had the real-life immortal Saint Augustine tied up back there, and that they fed the boys by carving pieces off of him, because he couldn’t die, just slowly enough that he had time to regrow everything and feed them all over again, and that was why the floors were always red. Then one of the passing housefathers overheard him, and beat him badly enough to leave a new dark stain on one of the hallway tiles. Fifty-Two didn’t get back out to work for three whole days.
The students were only allowed out of the building twice a week, for work-study, which basically meant sweeping and collecting trash from adjacent city blocks. Despite the temptation, no one ever really tried to escape; the chips in their brains would have let Saint Augustine’s know exactly where they were going, and the housefathers would snap them right back up. Anyway the city was a dangerous place, and it was imperative (said the Headmaster) that everyone do their part to help fix it, which for Saint Augustine meant cleaning up the streets. Everything was gathered and separated in sheer black bags, bags which reminded Sixty-Seven of the opaque sleeves that the Corp-Pos used to pack up corpses. The smell was rancid and there were always people staring, but Sixty-Seven didn’t care. It was better than being inside Saint Augustine’s. Anything was better than being inside Saint Augustine’s.
Today they’d been split into pairs with a “Go save the planet!” and set forth to comb the block for bottles. Sixty-Seven was partnered with a younger student, Eighty-Four, who usually got distracted chasing down cockroaches and sifting through the carcasses of washed-up slugs. Yesterday’s rains had overflowed the sewers, and so it wasn’t long before Sixty-Seven was on his own, weaving his way through chattering electronics stalls and streets shadowed by pulsating advertisements. It was all so bright and intense, so vivid and crowded and hypnotic, but he kept his eyes focused on the figures around him. He was small and skinny, even for his age, and he knew exactly how easy it would be for someone to grab him as he passed.
There was a pair of hard-nosed businessmen across the way, exchanging secretive looks and furtive glances while their mouths motored and twisted. There was a woman in tatters standing on the street corner, holding a sodden sign high in the air—the rain had ruined most of the letters, leaving only “END” and “FREE” still legible. And there was another boy watching him now, only a few paces away. He was swarthy, tanned and tall, with a confident smirk and a jagged scar-line running down his mouth. The boy caught him staring and smiled. Then he pointed at his face.
Sixty-Seven started. “What?”
“You got a black eye.”
He turned away hurriedly. “Yeah, so?”
“Cool.” The boy threw a pebble, watching it arc and bounce away into the frenzy of the road.
Sixty-Seven waited a moment, but no more words came. He cleared his throat. “Okay. I’m kind of busy.”
“With what?”
“Cleaning up the streets. Saving the planet.” Even as he said them, the echoed words felt hollow.
“Whatever.” The other boy seemed to think so too. “I live on the streets. Nobody cares if they’re clean.” He threw another pebble. “You an orphan or something?”
“I’m a student. And I have a family, I just haven’t met them yet.”
“Yeah, okay,” the boy snickered.
A wave of irritation rushed over Sixty-Seven. He didn’t totally believe in the Academy’s mantra, but what gave this stranger the right to think the same? He doubted the other boy had ever even been to school, much less suffered through the beating of a housefather. “So where’s your parents, then?”
“Dead. Least my dad is. I got away from my ma and her cabrón boyfriend.” He said this proudly, matter-of-factly, as if retelling a victory from some distant battle. “I’m Mateo.”
“Your dad named you?”
“I named myself.” Sixty-Seven couldn’t keep from gawking. The kid smirked, pleased with himself, the awe on the face of his audience not unnoticed. “You got a name?”
“Not yet. But my housefather says I’m getting close. Til then I’m Sixty-Seven.”
“That’s stupid. If you want a name just pick one.” Mateo tossed one of his pebbles into the air, counting under his breath then catching it lightly. “How about… Raoul?”
“What kind of name is Raoul?”
“Saw it in on a billboard. Better than a mongolo number.” This time he lobbed a pebble straight at him. It bounced lightly off Sixty-Seven’s shaven head, and Mateo chortled. “What kind of crazy-ass orphanage numbers the orphans?”
Sixty-Seven rubbed his forehead, frowning. “It’s a school. Saint Augustine’s. I told you, I’m a student.”
“Oh.” Mateo withdrew, suddenly quiet.
“What?”
“How long you been there?”
“Eleven years soon.” Silence. “Why?”
He seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek, deciding whether to say something. Then: “If you’re there too long they slice you up and sell you. For organs or whatever. My friend told me.”
“That’s not true.”
“En serio. She said they bring you into a backroom and put you to sleep, then they start cutting you open and taking stuff out. Said they keep what’s left in a freezer til they’re ready to sell it.” Mateo spat. “Swear on my grave.”
The bag of trash fell limp at his side. They were going to kill him. Somehow he felt like he should have been more surprised, more angry, but he just felt…hollow. Empty. He’d always suspected, but now he knew. There was no family waiting to meet him.
“Sorry,” said Mateo. “You should run.”
“Run where?”
“Anywhere.” Mateo shrugged. “There’s a couple of us in the old subway. It’s all flooded, so nobody goes down there anymore.”
“I can’t. They put a tracker in my head. They know where I am, all the time.” Even as he said it, a line of fear trickled forth from the back of his mind. “I should probably go.”
“They’re lying. You think Augustine’s has the credits for that? They barely make enough to keep the lights on.” Mateo pointed to the neon sign across the street: Saint Augustine’s Academy for Talented Young Minds, the letters sparking and fizzling in and out of focus.
“Nobody’s gonna adopt you, niño. Not before they chop you into pieces.” Mateo shook his head. “But we take care of each other. We’ll do for you, if you do for us.” He tossed what might have been his last pebble to Sixty-Seven, who caught it in one hand. The black bag still hung at his side, matching the shade of the bruise over his eye, traces of oily liquid pooling below.
Sixty-Seven stared at the ad. Then he glanced down at the pebble. It was a small thing, but somehow still sturdy. It was imperfect, rough, cool to the touch, soaked with rain. It might have come from the alley beneath his window.
“How do you spell Raoul?”
Mateo cocked his head to the side, quizzical. Then he grinned, flashing the glint of a tarnished golden tooth.