Greyer and Keel

Haggard is what Keel would describe Greyer’s state to be. He suffered from black eyes, incurred occasionally through sleep deprivation, but mostly due to his knack for parading his hyper-masculine tendencies in the form of punches to the face, stomach, and, in rare occasions, the groin. These beatings to said features occurred on 55th and 3rd, 22nd and 8th, and on the platform of 14th Street Union Square, where he paced, waiting for the 6-train heading uptown. Greyer was not one to stand clear of the closing doors, and he often held up filled subway cars with his navy backpack, refusing to wait for the next train. As he was unwilling to tarnish his ego in this manner, those who challenged his right to stand wherever he wished were often ejected from the car and emptied out onto the platform.

Greyer liked receiving punches, just as much as he liked throwing them. He believed tasting his own blood was a requirement for winning a match. Greyer grinned when Keel once remarked that the strikes were the most cost-efficient lip augmentation procedure. He had a very narrow, relaxed sort of smile, and surprisingly a lot of teeth, at least in the very front rows, where it mattered. Keel liked his teeth; when a hand advanced near his face, Greyer would put more effort into protecting his mouth, even if that meant he’d have to sacrifice a victory in the process. That would be a risk, if Keel didn’t like his teeth.

Greyer was always too warm or too cold. His excessive sweating caused his dark, dark hair to live matted down on his forehead. His hair in the back however, little that he had, always stuck up scruffy, the ends twirling into themselves, seizing onto one another, and twisting into tiny knots of careless thought. Keel enjoyed clawing her fingers through them, scratching the ends to turn straight.

Greyer’s eyes were grey. His parents waited 13 months before cementing his name on the birth certificate. They needed to confirm that his irises would remain grey, or else “the name would be preposterous.” If his eye color turned brown, blue, etc., he would have been named Thomas. Greyer was not a Thomas. In fact, he was not like a Thomas at all, for Thomas was a common name of the very men he beat on 55th and 3rd. Keel knew this because she received the New York Times every morning; she liked the sudoku squares. Greyer would find the names of the men he left bleeding in the street in the paper. He read them aloud to Keel over ham and eggs. They didn’t drink coffee; Keel wouldn’t let Greyer near a pot, she thought drugs to be beneath him.

Greyer had just left a voicemail on their Upper West Side apartment landline, calling to inform Keel that he had lost her heart-shaped locket, but that it wasn’t his fault. He was in a squabble near work, and her locket had been stolen, yanked from his neck by a Fur, one of the underground thieves who survived by trading stolen possessions for water and potatoes. Keel thought that meant perfectly well that it was Greyer’s fault, for Greyer always instigated a fight, particularly fights that involved Furs. The Furs were street swine, everybody knew that, but Keel believed they should be pitied, or at least ignored; they were no longer considered human enough to be worthy of taking one’s anger out upon. He should not have wasted his energy on a Fur. He was meant to save his resentment for the Suits. The Suits were the enemy and the Suits had always been the enemy. Yet, on occasion, Greyer tended to misplace blame for the state of the world onto the Furs because their own weak, sooty state represented the disheartening realities of a post-WWIII New York.

After the nuclear bombs of WWIII were dropped by the West, and, 8 seconds later, by the East, many perished in the heat waves, but millions more died over the next 60 years due to complications induced by radiation. The West, although they deployed their bombs first, produced a slightly higher death toll than the East, as the West suffered from a lack of coordination and cooperation in the bunkers. That is why democracy ceased as soon as the world was set on fire. Now, in 3014, it is widely believed that absolute control is the only method to the madness that is survival. The rigid organization of the entire Earth is integral to the preservation of the little world we have left to live off. All exist under one government: the monarchy, or, depending on your rank in this society, the tyranny. The Suits enforced order over the people by managing the food and water supply. The people obeyed, out of fear of death, or worse, of becoming a Fur.

Greyer had given Keel his own locket first. After a reluctant day she followed suit, and her heart was soon his to bear, yet, under the condition that they would never share the contents of their lockets with each other. This exchange transformed a 27-dollar fake gold necklace into a symbol of respect, love, and, most importantly, trust. But now, Keel no longer thought this to be a romantic performance of affection, but a foolish attempt to ease their tired and fragile egos. The locket provided the validation needed to sustain the relationship, to ensure Greyer and Keel would be held accountable for each other. Keel’s mind hummed with shock, but quickly, the vibrations pulsed into a fury of disgust. She gripped the small rust-ridden heart of Greyer’s from her neck, where the locket had clung resiliently for 7 years. He had given it to her on a Tuesday morning, after they had known each other for 3 weeks and 4 days. He had told her that the necklaces they had bought for each other were meant to be intertwined, that her heart belonged to him, and his heart to her.

But Keel understood all too well the consequences of her lost locket. Greyer, although apologetic in his voicemail, was, to Keel’s disappointed surprise, not in complete distress. Meaning he hadn’t done what she had done. The most human thing one could do; open the locket. It had taken Keel 2 years to cave, she assumed it would take longer for Greyer, but never 7 years. Greyer’s locket contained a picture of his parents. Predictable, Keel had thought, when her curiosity forced this big reveal. Greyer was, if anything, despite his seemingly spontaneous violent actions, predictable. Yet Keel had been mistaken, Greyer had stuck true to his word. His soft, grey eyes came into focus, she now saw them for what they were: naive. He had lost her heart, but never had he broken her trust.

She had believed her locket to be safer in the hands of Greyer than in her own. He could physically defend himself. The fights she entered, the ones on the computer, the ones where her words were her most lethal weapon, left her much more vulnerable than Greyer would ever be. Her membership in the coalition for equality, the CFE, felt more dangerous than her days in the bunker. Her ID number was in that locket. Her CFE identification. That data could collapse the only system in the world striving to reinstate democracy. She did not know the login, she had allowed only her computer to code the numbers, that way, in case she was the subject of an interrogation, the Suits could never gain full control. Not of the CFE. Not of her.

She would tell Greyer now. She needed his hands; not to hold her heart, he did not have that anymore, but to find and attack the Fur that stole her will to survive: the hope that lay within the locket.