Chapter Text
Spoken word was the last thing Angstrom expected to hear in the depths of Red Rock Canyon, much less from the mouth of a skinny Khan with bruises across his face and shoulders. The guy was sitting cross-legged in front of the training grounds in a frayed white T-shirt when they saw him, a bit of caked blood forming a jagged line on his cheek. He held a notebook and a piece of charcoal while he muttered to himself in rhyme. His voice sounded thin and weary.
“Not all poetry has to rhyme,” Angstrom said. They stood over the Khan, a head too short to block out the hot canyon sun.
The kid stood up with a wince, shielding his eyes from the brightness.
“What do you know about poems?”
“Enough to know yours need some work,” they said. “I grew up with the Followers.”
“You’re kidding. They brought us books when I was growing up.” He smiled, leaning over on one leg before he spoke again. “I’m Jerry. They call me the Punk. But I try to brush it off.”
“Angstrom. What’d they bring you?”
“Oh, you know. Keats, Yeats, things like that,” he said, making the two names rhyme. Angstrom swallowed their tongue. No point in keeping the correct pronunciation of those long dead men alive.
“That’s your problem. You never read any of the newer stuff?”
“That’s all they brought,” Jerry said. “Old books.”
Angstrom watched as his face contorted with pain, his dark hair stringy and matted with sweat.
“Are you okay?” they said.
“I’m fine. It’s the stupid intiation. I’m eighteen now and I have to survive a fucking beating to earn my place as a Khan or whatever. I can’t beg for mercy or I get disqualified.”
“C’mon. I’m a doctor. I’ll clean you up.”
Jerry wavered. His face contorted like he was weighing the humiliation of getting help with the pain coursing through his body.
“Sure. God, I’m gonna get another beating for being such a pussy,” he said.
Angstrom slung Jerry’s arm over their shoulder as they helped him hobble over to one of the yurts. The whole while he babbled about his poetry and complained about the brutish Khans, how he felt like he’d never fit in, how his younger brother was bigger than he was, some huge SMG wielding terror who already had four kids.
“I don’t get why you don’t write about that. Why are you writing limericks when you could be addressing your identity crisis?”
“What’s a limerick?” Jerry asked as he wormed out of his jeans, exposing purple bruises and old yellow ones blooming underneath his skin.
Angstrom fished for a clean cloth and a flask of vodka in their bag. They found the deep cut on Jerry’s right leg that was causing him to limp.
“This is where it hurts?” They asked.
“Yeah. Hey—fuck!” He said as Angstrom sanitized the area. They put their cold hands on his thigh and wrapped it up with gauze, leaving an extra piece of cloth where the wound was and pressing down.
Angstrom looked up at Jerry. There were tears welling up in his eyes just from the disinfectant. He was propped up on his elbows looking dazed. They noticed a few freckles spattered across the bridge of his nose and moved up to swipe some of the blood off his face. He shook at the texture of the rag against his cuts and Angstrom steadied him with a hand on his bony shoulder.
“Be still. Fixating on it is only going to make the pain worse.”
“I fucking hate this place,” he groaned. “I hate being someone I’m not. I hate my mom and my brother and my stupid dad. He wasn’t even a Khan, you know.”
Angstrom stayed silent, following a trail of dried blood on his neck with a wet cloth.
“Everything hurts.”
“That’s what poetry is for. Writing out your ouches,” they said, thinking of their mother, how she used to tuck slim volumes of poetry in between medical journals and chemistry textbooks.
“‘Ode to Being Curbstomped,’” Jerry said.
“There you go. I’d read that.”
“Am I gonna need stitches?”
“No. You’ll be fine. Make sure you wash the wound.”
Jerry looked up at Angstrom, who appeared clean and scarless save for a gnarled spot on their head where hair wouldn’t grow. Not Red Rock’s typical fare—visitors were normally there to see Jack and Diane, which meant they were either junkies or runners.
“So what’s your deal? How come you stopped by?”
“I need to talk to Papa.”
His eyes widened.
“No shit. So you’re like, a big ‘ole deal?”
“Not particularly,” Angstrom said.
The yurt they were sitting in smelled like disinfectant and sweat. A few boxes of 10mm ammunition were scattered around the dirt ground alongside a handgun that looked like it was in dire need of repair. Angstrom noticed the books Jerry had mentioned—the Keats and Yeats, and a notebook full of chicken scratch—which were similarly aged, with stuffed pages and tattered covers.
“I know you helped me already and everything, but do you think you could, like, talk to the Followers for me? I-if you’re still talking to them.”
As if they could ever escape service. Angstrom hung their head, smiled where Jerry couldn’t see.
“Yeah, yeah. I will. But you have to write me a poem first.”