Page 9 of Signed, I'm Yours!
He turns to me with puppy-dog eyes, and I take great pleasure in making this man squirm.
“We’ll see, darling John. Now lead the way,” I tell him, and he walks ahead. “Oh, and one more thing. You’ve been signed. By the Sinister Seomyeong.”
He nods as if he knows what I’m talking about, but they never do. They’re always in such a trance when they’re signed. I could tell them I’m a clown god, and they’d agree.
John McTarget walks frantically around the block, but I wasn’t born to walk, so I have to stop him when he attempts to cross the street. “Can we take a cab, John?”
“No need, sir. It’s not far at all. Just around the corner.”
I stop and take in my surroundings. It’s not Midtown, but I still know Harlem better than I know Brooklyn, and I’m sure I’d have noticed a government building all these years.
The little guy turns green, and John starts crossing the street, but I keep one eye on him, twirling my pen in my fingers in case my signature is already wearing off or he’s leading me to a trap and I need to sign him again.
After another block and a half—seriously, does he think I’m an Olympic sprinter or something?—he stops short in front of a stonemason building and smiles.
No, correction.
An abandoned, dilapidated stonemason building.
“What?” I ask him when he doesn’t say anything, even after three whole seconds.
“This is it,” he says.
“This is what?”
“This is our office.”
I grimace and glance back and forth between him and the building. It has shutters across the first-floor windows, while the top windows are covered by a huge For Sale sign.
“You’re trying to tell me your department works out of a derelict building you can’t even access. Cut the bullshit and take me to your real office.” I raise my pen in the air, ready to sign his fucking forehead if I have to.
“But, sir, this is the real office.”
I glance behind him, still holding the pen in a threatening manner. “I’d have an easier time buying that the bodega next door is your real office than this abandoned building.”
“P-please, sir. Follow me,” he says, ducking into the alley on the other side of the bodega and turning to look at me.
“You better not be lying to me, McTarget.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
As I follow him into the alley, I wonder if I can sign someone dead. I’ve never tried it. I’m not a monster. But I can’t help but wonder. Maybe John doesn’t deserve that fate, but what about the people who made my family disappear? Can I sign them dead?
He stops in front of a garbage skip and smiles like an idiot while there’s a big muddy puddle between us.
“Let me guess. The skip is your office,” I say.
He chuckles, shaking his head.
“Of course not, sir. Come on,” he says.
I huff.
“You expect me to fly there, John?”
He gives me the once-over like many people have done in the past—I’m used to it—but if he finds anything wrong with me or my appearance, he doesn’t say so. At least not while he’s under the influence of my signature.
“You can walk, no?”
