Broken Compass

West and I exchange a look. “All paper, huh?” he asks.

“Me and tech, we don’t get along well.” George waves a pudgy hand at us. “Intangible things… they’re not for me. Give me paper that I can hold in my hand, and… ah here we are.”

He pulls out a transparent envelope, opens it and slams a stack of papers on the desk triumphantly.

Nate approaches first, watching as George lifts the paper at the top of the stack. “So this is Kash’s application form?”

“Nah. Just general info I ask people to fill out just in case. You know.” He squints at it. “Damn, this boy’s writing is like a spider crawling. Can’t make out a word.”

“Give it to me,” I say, and snatch it out of his hand before he has a chance to say no. “I can read it.” Nate arches a brow at me and heat seeps into my face. “I’ve deciphered it. What?”

“So you’re reading the journal?”

“Yeah. Though it’s slow going. His writing really is like spiderwebs.” I lift the paper and study it. It’s the usual information sheet, and Kash had scrawled in our address, his cell phone number, his name and surname, his ID number. Well, his fake ID number, I guess. “I don’t see anything interesting.”

“Damn,” West whispers, rubbing the back of his neck. “It was a long shot.”

“You sure he hasn’t told you anything else?” Nate asks, taking the paper from me to have a look. “About where he’s from, what he planned to do later, anyone else he knew?”

“Trying to remember.” George scratches at his forehead. He’s sweating profusely, his shirt sticking to him. The little office is stuffy and too warm. “He mentioned a Sydney once?”

“That’s me,” I say, bittersweet joy spilling inside me.

“Oh okay. That’s the only name I remember. What else… He said his parents were dead.”

Nate looks up sharply. “He said that?”

“Yeah, he did. And a sister, I think? Can’t remember what we’d been talking about. My folks are dead, he’s said. And my sis, too. So life sucks, you know? That’s what he said.”

“Okay.” West glances at the door. He’s probably thinking it’s time to go.

It’s almost time to head to work, and we haven’t accomplished anything here.

“Said his dad was Russian,” George says, stopping that thought in its tracks. “His mom had been born here, but his dad came straight from St. Petersburg or something. Ah now I remember. We were talking about immigration. Told him how my mama came over from Greece, and he told me about his dad. Sad story.”

“How did his family die? Did he say?”

“No.” George sinks heavily in the dusty chair behind the desk. “Nothing more.”

West’s hands twitch. I think if we stay a minute longer he’ll start cleaning and tidying up this mess of a place.

“Great. Well, thank you.” I hand the paper back to him. “We’ll be on our way then.”

“Wait, wait… If he left, why are you looking for him? If he wanted you to know where he went, wouldn’t he have told you?”

“We’re not sure he left willingly,” I say.

George sighs. I don’t know if he agrees with me. “I hope you find him, and if you do, tell him to come see me. I miss talking to him.”

Tears prickle my eyes. Not as much as I have missed him. I turn away not to let him see.

Real life is the fact that Kash is gone, and I never got to tell him I love him. That we’re incomplete without him. That he’s our bright light, despite whatever darkness lurks in his past.

We want him back, but how?

The days and nights and weeks pass with no news.

Nate says he found a Zane Madden, but the number seems to be disconnected. He tried a couple more, but they don’t live in Wisconsin. Still, he tried, and he’s still trying.