“Ya have no soul, Vanya.” Obediah tilts the last bit of rye into the corner of his jar. 

“Also I have no pussy.” Vanya strikes a match and the flare sends shadows up his face. “Wakes are for women.” He holds the match to a rolled cigarette in the left side of his mouth and draws the fire in. “So they can cry and sing songs.”

Obediah glares at him. “This wake was for one woman, sure.” He drains the jar and wipes rogue drops over his braided beard like a balm. “And ya should’ve been there.” Obediah, whose friends call him O.B., has a preferred hoodie for each day of the week, and none of them actually zip over his belly.

There are two women and two men drinking in the brown light of a dangling bulb that is covered with a paper bag. All four live in the poorest quarter of New Breon, which is the capital city of Unified Glasland. They are breaking curfew and should have been in their homes two hours ago. 

Glasland occupies the entire west coast of a continent called Palicea and is disproportionately bigger than the other 33 countries in the Continental Union. Glasland has been home to the Marnish people for two millennia. Their cities started as fishing villages which became ship-building depots which exploded into modern metropolises, fed by international trade routes and fat veins of gold under the coastal hills. 

For a time Marnies led the world in philosophy, literature and music. They argued theology and drank and worshipped and fished. And then almost exactly 300 years ago, Koppers arrived.

In August of 2741, ships christened the Sona and Sasta deposited two holds worth of the fortune-seeking northerners at the port of New Breon. Koppers didn’t change Glasland because they came in huge numbers—they were a small minority like other immigrant groups that were absorbed by Marnish cities—Koppers took Glasland because they were strategic. Less than a hundred years after the first families arrived, Koppers were seated in the House of Sovereigns, high courts and temple boards. They bought out Marnish shipping lines and then they bought elections. 

Koppers turned million oir companies into billion oir companies and made Glasland the richest country in the world. And when underpaid Marnish quarters started to rot with poverty and crime, they cut off the gangrenous western half of the city with an armed concrete wall. 

They created a special police division to patrol the other side of the wall, called Sentries, and they also set a curfew of midnight. But Marnies don’t always do what they’re told. And tonight, these four Marnies are grieving and drinking to the dead in an old printhouse that they lease as a an art space for a few oir a month. The artists are sitting in brown light with four big-mouth jars and 3 bottles of rye.

 At the edges of the printhouse, there are stacks of perpetually damp cardboard boxes filled with decomposing fliers and blank paper. There is an empty vending machine, vertical piles of used aluminum plates and dirty printing blankets. There is a cutter, a saddle stitching machine and a perfect binder all pushed together by the west wall and covered with rubbish. Metal filing cabinets line part of the L-wing’s south wall and two walls of the old proprietor’s office. This is the refuge where the artists spend their few hours of free time after work every evening. There are actually six artists in the cooperative but only three were able to leave work in order to meet Amen there after the wake. 

It’s not a huge risk staying in the printhouse after curfew because Sentries don’t enter the industrial graveyard of Portsby—which locals call Poorsby—at night. Local Marnish cops are also scarce in Poorsby because they find extortion more entertaining than beatwork. Most nights the artists observe curfew anyway, because they don’t want to lose the art space. But after the wake tonight, when the clock’s long hand passed midnight, no one was ready to go home. So Vanya wrapped the overhead bulb in a crinkled bag. 

Vanya crushes the last of his cigarette in a mug and studies Amen on the opposite couch, who hasn’t said anything since they arrived. He’s loyal to his fiery-haired leader but does not go to wakes, even for her.

“Are you going to take her apartment?” The other woman drinking in the printhouse tonight,  aside from Amen, is Ginsberg, and her questions are always blunt. She is asking if Amen is going to take over her mother’s subsidized apartment. “It’s bigger than yours, isn’t it?” 

Ginsberg is actually her last name and the group has never called her by her first name. They don’t even know what it is, but they know she hates it. Ginsberg wore a black trench coat with empty belt loops to the wake because it was the closest thing she had to a dress. And she doesn’t know how to be tactful, even when talking to a girl who just buried her mom—so to speak. 

New Breon is too crowded for cemeteries and coffins are too expensive to bury, so the state cremates Marnish bodies and then their families place the small box of ashes in a rented coffin for a few hours to say goodbye. At Amen’s mother’s wake, they recited the same Marnish liturgy that Marnies have been reciting for two thousand years, about returning to the sacred soil. But her mom’s ashes didn’t return to the soil, they went into a plastic shopping bag. 

After the wake, Amen carried a ceremonial blackwood box full of ashes in a yellow grocery bag to the warehouse and tomorrow Amen’s mother’s coffin will be back on display.

“Holy fock, Ginsberg.” Obediah snatches Ginsberg’s empty jar as if it was responsible for the insensitive question about Amen’s mother’s apartment. “She might need a fockin’ minute,” he scolds. “Haven’t we just left the goddamn funeral and she’s a few things to sort out, doesn’t she. Maybe she doesn’t know if she wants her mar’s place.” 

“Why would she need a minute?” replies Ginsberg. “It’s not like her mom died by surprise.” 

Amen is wearing a simple button-up black dress that almost reaches her black boots. A feral mess of red hair falls over the shoulders of a synthetic sheepskin coat, and dangles past the crest rail of the orange couch she is sharing with Ginberg.

Amen’s mom died Sconsdey but Beanna’s health had been failing since summer. Ginsberg is right, her death wasn’t a surprise.

Amen pulls a blackwood pipe out of her pocket and begins to fill it with tobacco. It’s an old Marnish story pipe with a single octopus tentacle carved around the stem. She plunges a burning match into the black hole and draws in. “Her place might be bigger, Gins,” Amen responds, “but mine is closer to the warehouse.” 

A homely dog called Pye is also a regular at the warehouse. He raises his head because he thinks he hears a noise above the clicking of the rain and the loose gutter that is clapping against wet brick in the winter wind. Pye has bulging eyes, long bristles on his spine and one erect ear. He is, as far as they know, the only moment of compassion Vanya ever had. After a brief wait, Pye lowers his head back to his personal patch of gray shag carpet and closes his eyes.

“Did you give a speech and cry like a good daughter?” Vanya asks Amen.

She exhales white smoke and rests her right elbow on the arm of the couch, with the smooth bowl of the pipe in her right palm. “I told them I would be accepting gifts,” she replies, “and that they better not be casseroles.” 

“No, she didn’t.” laughs Ginsberg.

“We know, Gins.” Obediah groans. “But, boss, I brung ya my sweet bean and tater pie to comfort yer grievin’ soul.” He grins.

“That pie is its own kind of grief.” Amen zips her coat higher against the sharp cold in the warehouse and draws from her pipe. “Potatoes are more comforting when they’re deep fried. Or liquified in a bottle in my freezer.” Smoke curls out between her words. “I will accept fried condolence potatoes and Skolov.” 

“That is my girl.” Says Vanya. Skolov is a clear potato liquor from his part of the world, one that burns the throat and deep cleans the liver. Or, as his cousins in Morveria like to say, it warms a man from hole to hole. 

“Drinking is not a good idea when you’re sad.” Ginsberg advises her. “Even though we all do it anyway.”

“I’m not sad.” Amen’s jaw flexes.

“Of course, y'ar.” Obediah jumps in.

 “Of course, I am,” she repeats, “but also angry.” Then she corrects herself, “angrier. Way fucking angrier.”

“Yeah,” says Vanya. And they all grow quiet.

“Toms and Pax are still workin’, are they?” Obediah knows the answer to the question, he just doesn’t like silences.

“Yup,” Ginsberg confirms.

“What about your shitweasel brother?” Asks Vanya. “Did he go to show his respect?” When Vanya moves, he squeaks because he wears the same black leather jacket all year round, and he sits in a black leather chair.

Amen hesitates, “He had to work, too.” 

“He didn’t have to work,” says Obediah. “Yer man’s the boss over there. If he misses his mar’s wake, it’s because he wants to miss it.” O.B. rubs his beard braids between his finger and thumb like a talisman.

“He’s an ass.” Ginsberg declares. She says it every time they talk about Amen’s brother. Even though Ginsberg and Vanya are twenty years older than the rest of the group, Ginsberg seems more childlike than the rest of them. “I don’t understand why we pray for the dead,” she says. “They lived how they lived. They get what they get—if we get anything at all. If it isn’t, you know, just working and drinking and dying and then nothing.”

Obediah whistles in the dark. “Ginsberg, that is the worst funeral speech I have ever heard in my whole fockin’ life. If I die before you, yer not invited.”

They all know the benediction Ginsberg is talking about because it has escorted too many siblings, parents and grandparents into the ground. We carry these dead unto rest. We ask compassion and right judgment. We ask safety and harbor. We celebrate a journey completed and a journey begun. 

Obediah empties the last of the third bottle of rye into all four jars. When he raises his glass for a final toast, his inadequate red t-shirt exposes two inches of fulsome belly. There is a synchronized tightening of the group as Obediah, Amen and Ginsberg raise their jars to meet his. 

Obediah clears his throat, “This’ll be the last round so, ladies and gentleladies. Here’s to Beanna. Here’s to the good heart she had on her, the hard work she was after, and to all that goddamn talent that never saw the light of day.”

They start to lower their glasses but he isn’t finished. “And no respect to Ginsberg,” he adds, “here’s that Beanna find her way to everlastin’ peace and Gaeta.” 

“To Gaeta.” Four jars are emptied and then silence returns.

“See you drunks tomorrow,” says Ginsberg. Then she stands and turns into the shadowed recesses of the former printhouse to look for her umbrella. 

In slow motion, the remainers raise themselves, gather empties and pull their coats on. A sliding iron door clangs behind them as they plunge into the drizzle, and then Obediah spreads himself on the couch with a raincoat for a blanket.

_______

Seventy years ago, mid Poorsby was gentrifying. In the heart of the booming industrial zone, artists had taken root and were followed by young families looking to own houses. Blocks of ultra-modern apartment structures, in utopian white with rounded corners and minimal windows, followed the families. Now the railed balconies are rusty and the first two stories are gray with exhaust. The only drivers passing by are mid-management drug trade. They don’t live in Poorsby, they’re just leaving fresh scent around the neighborhood.

Amen’s studio is a long room with a straight shot from the front door to the balcony. There is just enough room to walk along the left wall past a single bed, a table, a toy fridge, a sink, a two-burner stove and a bathroom that is also a shower. 

“You’re drunk,” Toms tilts her head toward Amen’s empty mug on the bare wood table. “Should we get you more drunk?” It’s a compassionate question. 

“I’m relaxed.” Amen clarifies. 

“You’re traumatized.” Toms retorts. “Have you had anything but coffee and Skolov today?” Toms is a decisive black woman whose button-up wardrobe is at odds with her explosive hair. She’s not a lawyer but she works in a law office and has opinions on everything. 

Toms knows Amen better than anyone. Since the first year of superior school, it has been Amen and Toms, Toms and Amen. Actually, it used to be Toms and Amen and Berni, three inseparable, head-strong girls who didn’t fit with anyone else at school. But now Berni is in prison and Amen’s mom is dead and the truth is that Amen and Toms are both traumatized. 

“Stop analyzing me.” Amen peers into her empty mug. She knows Toms isn’t wrong. If she isn’t drinking cold coffee, she’s drinking something harder. And she hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday. 

The complicity and deep understanding between the women in Amen’s group of artists makes Obediah crazy. “Fockin’ sisterhood,” he says often. “Having a ‘giner is the only way to get anywhere around here.” 

On nights when the whole group makes it to the warehouse, there are three men and three women—which wasn’t something Amen planned. It just happened that way. After superior school, Amen started going to a historic pub full of malcontents called The Martyr’s Cup. She was rebellious and idealistic and willing to argue with anyone who wasn’t too in the cups to debate. 

She didn’t really have a plan or know what she wanted. Twelve hours a day,  seven days a week she was cleaning hotel rooms and the pub was an outlet for the growing restlessness inside her. And then one day she realized exactly what she wanted, when she met Ginsberg at the pub. Ginsberg was alarmingly smart. Even when she was sloppy drunk, she could spout facts on every possible subject. When Amen learned that Gins was also an artist who welded metal sculptures at an art cooperative in Poorsby, she recruited her as the first member of a new team. 

Little Marnish cooperatives had started showing up in empty Poorsby buildings and Amen learned that getting a permit for an art space was easy. Someone in Parliament thought that art projects might keep restless kids off the street and projected that the city could earn a little in dues from rusting structures that didn’t have any other use. A simple bureaucratic form and 30 oir was all it took to reserve the ailing printhouse.

It seemed to Amen that an art cooperative was the perfect cover for a revolution and revolution was coming, one way or another. She didn’t know what they were going to do or how, but she knew that whatever it looked like, she was going to need Ginsberg’s brain. 

For the first year, Amen and Toms and Berni met Ginsberg several nights a week at the warehouse. They painted and sculpted and talked about the future. Then over the following two years, Amen recruited Vanya and a bartender named Pax. And finally six months ago, Obediah.

Now Obediah is convinced that he is excluded from the sisterhood, but for Amen, it’s a matter of who came to the group first and who came later. Either way, Obediah is sure he will never be part of the inner circle.

All five Marnies that Amen invited to the cooperative are truly artists, and more importantly they’re all rebels of a sort. They aren’t the kind of rebels who think a revolution is coming—apart from Pax—they just want to create things. And if they get to break some Kopper balls along the way, that’s even better.. 

Amen is struck by a new pang of sadness when she thinks about her team. Berni was an exception, too. She believed in revolution to her core—the dirty kind: rifles hidden in basements, underground newspapers, protests in the streets and a new flag waving over the Parliament building. 

“Are you ready to go?” Toms picks her jacket up off the back of a chair. Amen knows she means it’s time to leave for the warehouse. They usually meet at Amen’s apartment and walk over together.

“I don’t think I’m going anywhere but my bed tonight.” Amen rubs her face. Her clothes are rumpled and her hair is a red mess. “Tell everyone I’ll be there tomorrow.” 

Toms drops her jacket back on the chair she took it from. “I’ll stay with you.” She tilts her halo of black curls compassionately at her friend.

“No you won’t.” Amen says. “Just go make sure Vanya doesn’t corner Pax. One of these days Vanya is going to get the fight he’s hoping for and Pax won’t last five minutes.”

“Why do they hate each other so much?” Toms drags the wooden chair toward her and sits down. 

Amen sighs like the mother of naughty children. “It’s as simple as it seems. Vanya thinks Pax is weak because he’s sensitive and wears little vests. And Pax thinks Vanya is a bully.”

“Vanya is a bully.” Toms confirms.

“We need bullies.” Amen pushes her empty mug away from her as if to deny an unspoken urge. “One day Vanya will help us do things that would make Pax sick.” She stands up to hunt for her pipe.

Toms shakes her head, “I wouldn’t underestimate Pax. He’s a bartender. He’s used to dealing with bad people.”

Amen shakes her head. “Pax is used to drunks and stupidity. And he has Jerry’s giant twins to throw them out if they go too far.” She drops back into the chair and opens her tobacco pouch. “Pax wears his feeling all over him. He’s reliable and predictable. And not the guy you want in a fight.” She lights the pipe, “Of course, that makes him irresistible to Vanya.”

“I don’t know why you let Pax into the warehouse in the first place.” Toms says.

“Because he’s reliable and predictable.” A half smile emerges on Amen’s pale face and she exhales. 

“Fair point.” Toms rises and walks toward the fridge. She is not surprised to find that the fridge is empty except for one styrofoam tray with an old hill of steamed cabbage in the corner. “I’m going to get food, because, huge surprise, you don’t have any. I’ll be back in ten.”

“No, don’t do that.” Amen says. “Go to the warehouse, Toms.” She wearily moves from the table to the bed and sits against the floral wall to smoke.

“What would you say is the likelihood that I’m going to take orders from you?” Toms zips her jacket and loops a black purse strap over one arm. 

“One day you will.” Amen’s eyes fall shut even though she’s still sitting upright. “You’re joking but one day you will be my general, Toms. I can’t do this without you.”

“Yeah.” Toms pulls the front door open, “I’ll be back,” she calls over her shoulder. The sound of the door’s automatic lock announces she’s gone. 

Amen collapses backwards on her mattress. “Okay.” She should have asked Toms to pick up more Skolov.