Steel City Diamonds

Darkness took over the sky, pin-pricks of light scattered overhead, a moon watching between a thin sheet of smoky clouds. I would have looked up and perhaps taken a moment to appreciate it, if I hadn’t been throwing up.

When I was younger and less cynical, I didn’t have any vices to turn to when the world beat down on my ever weighting shoulders. The world was still slightly new to me, something to be discovered, to be tampered with. To stick the metaphorical fork into the plug socket was something that seemed all too logical, and looking through my unborn eyes, I saw a world that you could only perceive before you really understood what life was about. I hadn’t made up my mind yet, and hadn’t lived through anything that would determine such a strong distaste as I had now.

That naivety, blindness, immaturity - whatever you’d like to call it - however, didn’t last long. The turn of a year, a little older, one single mishap changed everything. The world was cruel, unfair, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it. Instead, I accepted my misery and tried to send a massive ‘fuck you’ back in the face of the omnipresent bastard that delivered it to me.

I started smoking when I was seventeen, and although I’d drank before then, I hit the bottle harder and fiercer and never missed a drop. There were weekends of my teen life that were misplaced from my memory, even today as I rolled begrudgingly into my twenties. My tolerance for alcohol had built, but still, I had my limits. Especially when it came to tequila.

The little terrace of the third story apartment was empty when I’d stumbled out hurriedly, my eyes blinded by the effects of alcohol. I threw myself forward, my hands grazing against the concrete below me, and let my stomach empty. I shook against the nausea and the cold air that bit at my exposed arms and face.

Christ, Riley, you’ve really overdone it.

Through the glass door, which I may have left partially open, I could hear the low bass of the dub that played, the reeling, drunken chatter of the parties occupants and then the door itself sliding open.

“Oh, fuck!” A voice laughed behind me. I didn’t pick myself up, or look back. Instead, I heaved again. The guys - they were definitely men, and there was at least three of them - made a noise of disgust, the shuffling of their feet clattered in my ear drums as they backed up.

“Oh, gross!” Another voice said. “Guys, I ain’t smoking out here.”

They cheered and hollered as I sniffed and blinked away my tears, my knee’s shaking and rattling beneath me. I really fucking hoped I didn’t collapse face first into the mess I’d just made. Like I wasn’t humiliated enough.

“Bit too much to drink, eh, Love?” One of them said, and I muttered a fuck you in response. The laughing continued, and all I could do was kneel there, surrounded by the chilling October wind in my stupid Wonder Woman costume, waiting for death to come and whisk me away as I died of shame. I’d never felt so pathetic.

“Oi, what’re you lot doing?” Another voice joined them, another man.

There was a pause of silence, and I heard more shuffling and a bit of mumbling. “We came for a smoke, and found this.”

“Well, if you’re done, you should get back to the party, then,” the newest one said. There was another collection of words that I couldn’t have picked up if I’d wanted to listen to anymore, and then the door was being pulled shut again.

Slowly, with wobbling arms, I lifted myself up so I was sitting on my heels. I lifted my face up, letting out a low sob and closed my eyes.

“You okay?”

“Shit!” I lurched away where the voice had come from. One of them hadn’t left, instead was leant up against the railing of the balcony, a paper and tobacco between his fingers, staring down at me. He rolled his cigarette, watching me as I watched him.

I sniffed again, “No.”

He didn’t try and help as I struggled to my feet, just stared at me. I’d have felt uncomfortable anyway, even if I wasn’t dressed like a complete moron, just puked somewhere near where his feet were and possibly in my own hair, and had just been publicly humiliated.

I made sure my skirt was covering my underwear at the back, then made towards the doors.

“You want a smoke?” The guy asked me. I could almost see him through the back of my head, perhaps staring at the back of my bare legs, still playing with the roll-up in his fingers. When I turned, he was just running his tongue along the edge.

I wanted to decline, to say no and run through the apartment, ignore the people that I’d come with and get the first taxi back to my own home, so I could shower and cry and pass out in peace. But, as he lit the end of his fag, sucked in a generous mouthful and spilled it out again, the smell of almost instant relaxation filled the air around me, and the image of my own cigarettes, somewhere unknown back indoors made my decision.

“Please,” I muttered, stepping warily toward the stranger.

It wasn’t unusual that I’d be secluded with a strange man that I’d never met before at a party. With the cigarettes, the weed, the drink, men had become another vice of mine. I’d often lull myself into a sense of self pity, convince myself that there was nothing wrong with being wanted, even if it was for one night. But the next morning, when the fog had been cleared from head and instead replaced with a headache that should be classed as a serious case of self harm, I realised that it wasn’t me that was wanted, but what was between my legs.

This one was hard to make out at first, but as I neared, and with the help of the dim light coming from inside, slowly his appearance began to manifest. He was wearing a tatty, striped shirt and a pair of loose-fitting jeans, with holes at the knees and the bottoms torn off right at the ankle. The fingers that he’d busied rolling his own cigarette and now mine were stained with something, deep red - fake blood.

The stains travelled up his arms, and then suddenly I realised that not only was he covered in blood, but also tattoos. On his fingers, his arms, his neck and throat.

It wasn’t until he handed my the fag and a lighter, that I realised he’d seen me staring at him.

“Uh, thanks,” I said awkwardly, hurrying as I tried to use the lighter, fighting against the wind and my shakes.

“You need some help?” I thought I heard a light laugh under his breath as he asked, but when I glimpsed at his face - also splattered with red - his eyes were large and undeterred by any particular emotion.

“No,” I shook my head as fire finally sparked up in front of me, breathing in a much needed hit of calm. “Thanks.”

I didn’t want to look at this guy. His eyes were far too wide, almost judging, so I leant over the railings, looking down at the water below, and the sky that was reflected in it, dazzling and constantly swishing and dancing.

“So, you know Matt?” The guy asked - small talk - as we smoked. I guess he was trying to be polite, and after he’d gotten rid of those men, and given me a smoke, I should have reciprocated. But I was drunk, embarrassed and cold, so manners had sort of taken a step down from my priorities, sitting instead under the foul mood that I’d developed.

“Who?”

I saw him exhale a tunnel of smoke from the corner of my eye before he spoke again. “This is his place, and his balcony that you just threw up all over.”

I felt my face burn, despite the wind. “No,” I grumbled, “I don’t know him. I came with some friends.”

“They back inside?”

I turned to him, surprised to see him already looking at me. “Well, they’re not out here are they?”

His mouth pulled up into a half smile, his eyes flicking away in amusement before they fell on me once more. “You’re really pissed off, aren’t you?”

I narrowed my eyes at this guy. He thought he had me all figured out, and he stood there so cockily, his weight balance on one leg, his eyes bright and perky, smiling that stupid, smug half smile.

“Wouldn’t you be?” I retorted.

The guy shrugged, exhaling again. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation.”

I cocked my eyebrow in disbelief. “You’ve never been sick at a party before?”

He definitely laughed this time, though still quiet and breathy, and flicked his hair from his face. I noticed then how long it was, and dark.

“Course I have,” he replied. “Who hasn’t? But I’ve never threw up at a party, on a strangers balcony, dressed as…who are you meant to be?”

I growled on the inside, infuriated not by how this guy was openly mocking me, but how I was letting him.

“Wonder Woman. Obviously,” I motioned toward my, what I’d thought, iconic stars and stripes costume.

The guy squinted, taking a step nearer, then another. “Ah, yeah!” he giggled. “Sorry, it’s a bit dark out ‘ere. Doesn’t Wonder Woman have black hair, though?” he nodded up at my head, pointing out that no, my hair wasn’t black, but light brown.

“Yes. But I’m not going to dye my hair for some stupid part, am I?” He smiled at my growing agitation, but didn’t reply, instead looking out onto the city and it’s lights. The wind blew at his hair, the white light from above playing on his features and the water in his eyes produced from the cold. “Who are you meant to be anyway?”

“Dead?”

“Yep,” he answered easily, popping the word between his lips.

“Just dead?” I asked again. “Isn’t that a bit vague?”

The amber was crushed away as he rotated the end of his cigarette against the smooth surface of the railing, and he left the butt there, forgetting it. He turned to me again before he replied.

“There’s nothing wrong with vague. Leaves less room for mistakes. For example, if I’d have come as Wonder Woman, not only would have I had the wrong hair colour - thought it’s probably a better match than yours - but I’d also have fucked up, ‘cause I’m a bloke. Dead is easy. You just have to look like you -”

“But dead,” I finished. “I get it. You made you’re point, I’m a shit Wonder Woman.”

His mouth slipped into it’s old habit, one side higher than the other, and I felt myself swallow as he inched a little nearer. He smelled of the fag he’d just had, and aniseed.

“What’s your name?” He asked, his eyes darting over my face. I hated that, when people indiscreetly analysed you, without any shame.

I peered back at him, without any hope of trying to understand this stranger with just one look, like he seemed to be trying to. Why should I tell him name?

Why shouldn’t I?

“Riley,” I told him, my teeth chattering slightly. “And you’re-”

But he didn’t give me time to finish, because he knew exactly my question. “Oliver,” he replied, and again he flashed me his half-grin.