Infinite Games

10. Bye Bye Byrdie

I pretended I wasn't wearing a trash bag in place of clothing.

That was the best way to feel invisible as passerby stared daggers at my ragged looks. Closed shop windows lent a helping hand in reminding myself just how atrocious I seemed.

The windy city kept threatening to reveal what was so craftily hidden beneath black plastic. As I sprinted from the sirens, brisk air hit my mandibles, and I bent lower to try and cover them up from the cold. You can get frostbite anywhere, y'know.

"Stop running, kid!"

It was hard to take a cop seriously when the megaphone speaker cut out as he began to giggle. Giggle. A cop, giggling. At me!

"Take me back!" I yelled at the sky. "I want to qui-"

Something sharp hit my left shoulder, and I shook with tremors that lit my nerves up bright with hellfire.

Smack!

As the convulsions slowed, my headache worsened. Running at full speed meant a taser didn't just stop me in my tracks, it sent me to the ground. Hard. In the haze of new pain, I forgot to ask for eternal death. The click-click of cuffs tightening around my wrists and a heavy knee forcing the air out of my lungs was too much for a fried brain to handle.

My Miranda Rights were a whirlpool of faces and flashing cellphone cameras. The crowd gathered for the spectacle of my now covered, but still-somewhat-naked body. Definitely not how I thought I'd make the news.

The snug, cold metal of my handcuffs was the only thing to console my complete and utter embarrassment as the officer shoved me into the back of a standard police cruiser. Why couldn't I have stayed inside the alley and lived off half-eaten sandwiches?

Not even the L.A.P.D. macaw mascot plush on the dashboard could cure the urge to curl up like a party tray shrimp and drown myself in cocktail sauce --yet another two items that would have been available to me, had I stayed near the festering dumpster that marked my rebirth.

All these new sensations, the torment of public humility, and I found myself crying in the back of a police car. Little LED's flickered at the window, documenting each engorged tear before the cruiser rumbled out of camera range.

"You homeless, kid?"

I nodded, sniffling up the snot bucket before it could overflow onto the stinky grey seats. Homeless was better than saying I had been squished out of hell into an alley in order to play some creepy hide and go seek with a girl whose face and name I saw carved into the underside of a giant green beetle. That really wouldn't go well.

"What's your name?" the officer asked, opening his laptop as we pulled up to a red light.

"Simon T-"

I couldn't tell him my real name. Simon Tellard was very much dead in Los Angeles. Heck, he was probably buried in some cemetery, not far from the Hollywood set he died on. I'd need to come up with something quick.

"Thick," I finished.

"Simon... Thick," the cop mumbled; his hairy hand typed each letter.

I held my breath as the results loaded. Please be a real name. The light changed. Buildings and convenience stores rolled by while the car moved.

"Been homeless long, Simon?"

The cop eyed me in his rear view mirror, itching his nose with a passion. Looking up, I could see every wrinkle and acne scar on his tanned forehead. In the background of the reflection was my own face. Unrecognizable.

It was as if the hair I would have grown during my years as a demon transferred to my new human form. The usual Simon crew cut --kept short for fire safety purposes on set-- now hung past my shoulders, and a scraggly brown beard --I had never had luck growing it out-- matched my untrimmed eyebrows.

I felt the overgrowth with a sense of befuddlement, and the pale, hollow-cheeked guy in the mirror touched his face too.

"I'll take that as a yes," the cop said, glancing at his computer screen as I continued to explore the wild new features upon a face I wasn't entirely sure I still owned.

"You aren't in the system, Simon. Seeing as you aren't causing to much trouble, I'm going to drop you off in front of the shelter. They should help you with your... well..."

I crossed my legs, aware of my circumstances once more. A warm car had made me forget about the chill to the air just beyond the tinted windows.