Banana Fish: Retrograde Light — Ash Lynx Cuts Fate
*"You can still make it in time. Stop Banana Fish."*
Ash Lynx wakes from a dream of his own death—blood on his tongue, warmth fading from someone's arms, a quiet breath at twenty-three. But he's seventeen, running a gang of street kids in Harlem, and the dead don't get second chances. So why does the photograph by his pillow show a young man he's never met? Why does the handwriting on the back know about a drug that's supposed to be nothing bu
BANANA FISH: Retrograde Light — Ash Lynx Cuts Fate - Premonitory dreams and photographs, and the disappearance of a best friend
I tasted blood.
Iron, spreading through my whole mouth. My body won't move. I'm on my back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. My vision blurs. White light bleeds in.
Someone is calling my name. Far away. The voice is so far away.
I'm being held in someone's arms. Warm. But the warmth is fading. My fingertips go cold. My heartbeat slows.
Ah. So this is what dying feels like.
At twenty-three, I let out a quiet breath.
—And in that instant, Ash Lynx bolted upright.
His heart pounded deep in his ears. Sweat clung to his forehead. His breathing was shallow. He tried to pull in air and couldn't.
A dim room. The windows were boarded shut, only a sliver of moonlight leaking through. The smell of damp dust. Sirens in the distance.
Second floor of an abandoned building in Harlem. His own hideout.
Ash raked a hand through his messy blond hair. The longer strands in front were plastered to his forehead with sweat. His deep green eyes slowly focused in the dark.
"...A dream."
His voice was hoarse. His throat was dry.
For a dream, it was far too clear. The taste of blood. The cold fingertips. The warmth of someone's arms. All of it felt real.
Ash wiped his face with his right hand. On the back of it, an old scar from a cut. A wound from childhood. Now faded to a pale white line.
—Twenty-three.
In the dream, he died at twenty-three.
Why would he dream something like that?
Ash hugged his knees on the bed and stared vaguely at the map of New York City pinned to the wall. A few red pins stuck out of it. Territory borders. Enemy gang positions. The informant's address. All of it was in his head.
He'd lived in this city seventeen years. No—he'd only lived seventeen years.
Manhattan. New York.
A city where money and violence did the talking.
The subway ran twenty-four hours. The neon never went dark till morning. The air was a mix of exhaust, hot dogs, and piss. Needles littered the alleys, and on weekends gunshots echoed somewhere.
In that city, Ash ran a gang of street kids.
Age seventeen. About thirty under him. Ages twelve to nineteen. Kids with no home, or a home they couldn't go back to.
Ash held them together. Pickpocketing, information gathering, courier work. Crossing dangerous bridges to scrape together daily bread.
It wasn't pride. It was just the only thing he could do.
He braced a hand on the edge of the bed and sat up. His black leather jacket hung over the back of a chair. Damaged jeans still kicked off on the floor. The hem of his red shirt was damp with sweat.
He needed to change.
—That was when it happened.
He noticed something lying by his pillow.
A photograph.
A little smaller than his palm. An old black-and-white photo. The edges of the paper were yellowed. Ash picked it up.
In it was a young Asian man.
About his own age, maybe a little older. Big eyes. Soft-looking black hair. Looking straight at the camera. Not smiling. But a gentle face.
A face he didn't know.
Someone he'd never met.
Ash flipped the photo over.
There was handwriting on the back. Black ink. Faded, with traces of being traced over again and again.
—You can still make it in time. Stop Banana Fish.
A chill ran down his spine.
Banana Fish.
Not a word he'd never heard. He'd caught rumors somewhere in the city. A drug made at a mental health center. A drug that controlled people. Anyone who used it had their mind destroyed.
But those were just rumors. The kind of scary story street kids told.
"Who... left this?"
Ash scanned the room.
The windows were boarded. The door should have been locked. Three beds. Communication equipment. The map on the wall. The weapons cache.
No sign anyone had gotten in.
He rubbed the paper between his fingertips. The texture was old. His knowledge told him it was from the 1950s. The ink color, the feel of the photo—none of it was recent.
And yet, only the writing was new.
"...Banana Fish."
He muttered it and clenched the photo.
His hand was trembling, just slightly.
The dream and the photo.
Both at once—could that be coincidence?
—You can still make it in time.
In time for what?
No answer came.
Ash shoved the photo into his jacket's inner pocket. Then he let out a slow breath.
The dream flickered at the back of his mind. Blood. Cold fingertips. Someone's arms.
That was his future self.
The thought sent a slow chill through his chest.
"...It doesn't matter."
Ash said it quietly, as if convincing himself.
A dream is a dream. The photo was someone's bad joke, nothing more.
If he didn't believe that, he couldn't stand.
He got off the bed and picked up the jeans from the floor. Threaded his belt. Buttoned the red shirt. Pulled on the black leather jacket. The small piercing in his left ear glinted faintly in the dim room.
He opened the door.
Outside, it was still night.
Harlem's night ran deep.
More than half the streetlights were broken. Trash scattered across the road, plastic bags swirling with every gust. Sirens far off, a dog barking nearby.
Ash descended the stairs of the abandoned building.
On the first floor were Bones and Kong.
Bones was skinny and short. Fourteen. A nasty look in his eye, always seeming scared of something. But he was fast. The best pickpocket in the group.
Kong was a big guy with short black hair. Sixteen. Not too bright. But strong. In a brawl, he could take on an adult.
The two of them sat on an old sofa, playing cards.
"Ah, Ash."
Bones looked up.
"You're up already? It's still dark out."
"Just couldn't sleep."
Ash answered shortly and walked over to the map propped against the wall.
A map of New York City. The five boroughs color-coded. Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island.
This city had all kinds of people.
Little Italy had the Corsican mafia. Chinatown had the Chinese gangs. Harlem had the African-American street gangs. Downtown had street kids like them.
Territory, money, and the smell of blood.
"What's the plan today?"
Kong set down his cards and asked.
"Downtown. The informant's place. He still hasn't paid last week's."
"Is that guy gonna stall again?"
"He won't stall."
Ash said it without turning around.
His voice was calm. Almost cold.
Bones and Kong exchanged a look.
That was the voice Ash used when a switch had flipped. Better not to cross him.
Ash pulled a butterfly knife from a wooden crate by the wall.
Ten-centimeter blade. Stainless steel. Twenty-five dollars.
Cheap. But it fit his hand well.
A flick of his fingers, a spin, and it slid into his pocket.
"Let's go."
The three left the abandoned building.
The outside air was damp.
June in New York is muggy. Daytime tops thirty degrees. Even at night, the heat lingers in the concrete.
Ash walked with his hands shoved in his pockets.
Ten minutes on foot to the subway station.
Both sides of the street were lined with scrap dealers' warehouses. By day the machines made a racket, but now it was quiet. The smell of scrap iron.
Somewhere far off, a siren wailed again.
Bones gave a small yawn.
"So sleepy..."
"You stayed up late again yesterday, didn't you."
"Well, I was listening to baseball on the radio."
"The Giants again?"
"They lost. In extra innings."
The two chatted behind him.
Ash listened with half his mind on something else.
The photo.
The young Asian man.
—You can still make it in time.
He didn't know that face.
And yet, why?
The moment he saw the photo, something stirred deep in his chest.
Someone he'd never met.
And yet, it felt like nostalgia.
—Ridiculous.
Ash pushed the thought down.
They reached the subway station.
The Harlem station was dim even by day. Half the fluorescent lights were out, and the rest flickered. Spray-paint graffiti on the walls. Newspaper and some kind of liquid stain on the floor.
The fare was ninety cents.
Through the turnstile, down to the platform.
The train came right away.
The car was empty. Just a man coming off the night shift, a sleeping drunk, and the three of them.
Ash stood near the door and looked out the window.
The tunnel wall streamed past.
—Downtown.
Southern Manhattan. Close to Little Italy and Chinatown. Their territory too.
The informant was on a back street off Canal Street.
The train swayed.
Ash gripped the strap and caught his own face in the window.
Blond hair. Green eyes.
People in the city called him "an angel's face."
But inside, he was no angel.
He'd been in this city as long as he could remember.
He didn't remember his parents' faces. What he remembered was cold, hunger, and the touch of adult hands.
—Don't remember.
Ash closed his eyes.
The train slowed.
They reached Canal Street.
The three got off.
Up on the street, the air changed.
More neon than Harlem. Chinese signs. Italian restaurants. Tourist souvenir shops.
But one step into the back streets, and it showed another face.
Alleys piled with garbage. Rats running. Red spray-paint like blood on the walls.
Ash walked without hesitation.
At last, a room in an old apartment building.
He knocked on the door.
"Who is it?"
A low voice from inside.
"Open up. It's Ash."
Silence.
Then the sound of a lock, and the door cracked open.
The informant was in his forties. Thin, with bulging eyes. The room reeked of cigarettes.
"Ash... I don't have the money yet today..."
Before the man could finish, Ash pushed the door open.
The man stumbled back.
Ash walked in and sat on the sofa. Crossed his legs.
"Last week's cut. How much."
"F-five hundred... no, three hundred dollars..."
"Eight hundred."
"Th-that's, last week the intel was thin..."
"Your intel nearly got one of my kids caught. Eight hundred is cheap."
Ash's voice was quiet.
Quiet, and cold.
The color drained from the man's face.
Bones and Kong stood on either side of the door. No way out.
"...F-fine. I'll pay. I'll pay."
With trembling hands, the man pulled a wad of bills from a hiding spot in the floor.
Ash took it and stuffed it into his pocket without counting.
"Next time you screw up, I take a finger."
The man gasped.
Ash stood.
"Let's go."
The three left the room.
Walking down the hall, Bones whispered.
"Ash, that guy—you said eight hundred."
"Yeah. Five would've been fine."
"Then why?"
"Guys like him get cocky when they think they've got room. Taking a little extra keeps it just right."
Bones let out a quiet "huh."
They left the apartment and hit the street.
The sky was starting to lighten.
As he walked, Ash touched the bills in his pocket with his fingertips.
Eight hundred dollars.
How many meals that bought. How many pairs of shoes. How many places to sleep.
—But.
Ash stopped short.
Beyond the alley, he saw the sunrise.
Orange light poured through the gaps between buildings. It lit the piles of garbage. It lit a dead rat.
In this city, even the morning sun looked dirty.
"...What am I even doing?"
He didn't say it aloud.
Only in his mind.
Boss of the street kids.
Seventeen.
Shaking down money, handing it out to the kids.
And for what?
It wouldn't get him out of this city.
Not him, not those kids.
—Is this how it goes, until I die?
The dream flickered again.
His twenty-three-year-old self. Lying in a pool of blood. Held in someone's arms.
Whose arms were those?
Ash shook his head.
No use thinking about it.
Back to the hideout.
On the way, Bones said,
"Ash, you gonna sleep now?"
"Yeah. You two sleep too. We move at dusk."
"What about food? Want me to grab something on the way back?"
"Do what you want."
Kong happily ran off to a nearby bagel shop.
Ash watched his back vaguely.
Kong was an idiot.
But not a bad guy.
Bones was a skilled pickpocket, but at heart he was timid and kind.
None of them could survive without him.
—No, that's wrong.
He was the one who wouldn't let them go.
Ash twisted his mouth in a self-mocking smirk.
They got back to the hideout a little after six in the morning.
They split the bagels three ways.
Kong had cream cheese on the tip of his nose. Bones pointed it out, and the two bickered.
Ash listened while looking at the map on the wall.
Chinatown
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