Grimy the scrounger, small and quick, prowls the garbage middens that make up the edge lands, run for miles they do, piled up by the Godders to mark their borders and shame the heathen. It’s the edges where Grimy searches for treasures in the trash, for the heathens are always short on goods and the Godders are wasteful by nature and quick to throw their excess as a taunt.

Quiet and quick is Grimy, satchel slung over his dirty mackinaw, a leather cap pulled down tight. His eyes seek the shine of metal amongst shit and scatter while his ears peel sharp for the sound of any false step on his trail. Scroungers seek goods for the folks back home. Godders hunt for scroungers. A heathen soul is a trophy, and they need trophies to earn their way into paradise.

This day, Grimy’s sharp eyes spy a perfectly good spanner peeking from a tangle of rotting plastic. It’s a true find. Maybe the thrill of finding dulls his ears, or this Godder girl is slicker than the others. Whatever the reason, he’s tucking the wrench into his satchel and when he looks up, there she is. It’s as if she sprang fully formed from the poisoned soil. The Godder girl is pretty and snake quick. She snatches Grimy with ivory clean hands, her claws wrapping up the lapels of his mac, pulls her smiling face close to his. When she speaks her breath is clean, fresh as death, asking Grimy in a throaty voice did he know his very own personal savior.

Caught dead to rights you are, Grimy, and all alone. It’s only quick talk and tricks that can save you now. But Grimy is nothing if not tricksy. A fella spends all his time out on the edges, he learns a thing or two, else he doesn’t return to his heathen homeland.

“Sure, I know my personal savior,” blurts Grimy, trying for a grin but wanting to pee his britches. “He’s a fella by the name of Big-Ski, who just this morning saved me from a thumping.” Babbling it out like it means something and all the while smiling at the pretty girl, shining a big, goofy grin to keep her guessing.

He’s just throwing up scraps of nonny, the first thing his brain latches onto, but it stops that Godder girl for just a tic. An old trick but a good one. You toss some nonsense or a bit of doggerel in their path, something outside their ken, it blinkers them long enough to make a dodge or strike a blow.

Grimy’s tale of Big-Ski is true, of course. Heathens don’t lie. The big oaf spared Grimy a drubbing by laying into three lads who were laying into Grimy. No reason for any of it, the hard blows or curses, no more sense than the belly laughs after and a bottle passed around to ease the mutual hurts. All of it is the true talk but him buttonholed by a pretty Godder girl is no time for long-winded tales.

The little scrounger wishes Big-Ski was close enough at hand to perform an actual salvation. The big oaf would pitch this little holy girl like nine-pins, all the way back to her own territory. But Big ain’t here, so the story trick is going to have to do. Grimy’s got no time for wasting chit-chat, breath, or the rest of his life over some ambushing Godder, no matter how cute she is.

The Godder girl doesn’t loosen her grip as Grimy spills his story, but the gleam in her eye wavers for half a heartbeat. He knows she’s trying to parse out what a Big-Ski might be and how all this tallies with her notions of the narrow path. Course, Ski doesn’t tally with a single blessed thing in her shiny clean world, but Grimy ain’t offering explanations. Half a heartbeat is all he’s going to get and he’s too smart a lad to miss his one chance.

He slams his bony forehead hard into her beak. The Godder’s face is too close for a true head butt, so her nose doesn’t break, but he draws a splash of her blood for his trouble. Then he throws his arms over his head, goes boned-fish limp, and spills down and out of his mac like dirty water. A quick roll across the soggy ground and he’s up and running, leaving that cute girl bloodied and holding an empty mackinaw jacket. Grimy is gone without need of a backward glance, splashing through puddle and dreck, a dodger dodging, coatless but free.

Grimy’s not worried about his lost coat. The girl has no earthly or heavenly use for a dirty jacket. He’ll return for his mac once the bloodied Godder wanders back whence she came, back to her land of shiny pulpits and toothy preachers.

Meanwhile, the quick small scrounger is dashing through the edge land, heading for the tunnels. Then he’s under cover, dodging culvert tops and sewer rungs, not wanting a split noggin added to a close call.

Left right, swerve and turn, Grimy knows the way home. He hears friendly voices ahead and makes for them, all the while listening behind. There’s nothing to hear but the splash of his footfalls and no one chasing him except echoes.

That coat-grabbing Godder girl is most likely already on her way back to her side of the line. Godders aren’t much good with uncertainty. Surprises throw their sense of orderliness out of whack, makes them wonky. Grimy imagines the girl back amongst her own, sporting her bloody beak and a story of how she almost brought salvation to one of the dirty heathens. Almost got one. Almost.

To hell with her, he thinks to himself, and some of the chase fear unknots from his guts. He’s long gone and slipped it once again. There’s good reason they tell stories about Grimy, the slipperiest of the scroungers.

The hum of talk gets louder and Grimy recognizes the voices in it. It’s the very lads he had the donnybrook with, and Big-Ski as well. Free and clear, he slows to a walk, and a wave of memory breaks over him from behind. Funny how that happens in the here and alone.

It wasn’t always thus and so, with the Godders in charge of everything and the heathens banished beyond the edge lands. That time is so long gone now, lots of the youngers never knew it any other way. But Grimy remembers, him being born back when everyone lived all together in a messy jumble. He was twelve when his family did the runner, his parents waiting until it was almost too late.

When Grimy was a boy child, all sorts of people filled his neighborhood, a big noisy mess under the sun, or so it seemed to him and his gang of playmates. It didn’t seem that way to the Godders, though. Any sort of jumble made them restless, especially any sort of mess that mixed different folks together as one.

The way the Godders reckoned it, there was but one way to live. It didn’t matter to them who or what, their way was the right way and the only way. They took to calling their way the narrow path, and they applied it to everything and everyone.

The Godders worked hard to erase the messiness they saw around them, slapping rules on anybody they didn’t like. That kept them busy because they didn’t like anyone who thought, looked, or acted the slightest bit different from them. Any person, thing, or idea outside their narrow path struck fear into their hearts, and that fear made them dangerous.

Preachers sold fear from their pulpits and the Godders were in a buying mood. Fear of others stirred them up like a nest of ants. They spent a lot of time identifying all the folks who believed or behaved in any way different from what the Godders believed. The narrow path wasn’t something they were in the mood to share. It wasn’t like those old gospel songs where everyone was welcome. The Godders didn’t want any riffraff walking beside them.

It was their way or the highway, and the heathen highway led to a fiery hell and good riddance. The Godders worked up some strong beliefs about every aspect of how people should be living: how babies were born, how kids were raised, what subjects got taught in the schools, and so on right on down the line.

Sex held a special horror for the Godders and occupied their thoughts day and night. The idea of random folks enjoying sex drove them into a frenzy of rulemaking. The Godders conjured up rules covering every aspect of sex, stiff rules that no one seemed to want to obey, not even the Godders.

They set about cooking up rules about who could fuck who, when, and how the fucking should take place. When their sex rules didn’t catch on with everyone, the Godders took up a holy quest to transform their rules into the law of the land.

Long after the events, when Grimy was grown to a young man, he often puzzled over the thing. How did the Godders get away with it? Why didn’t people put a stop to it? He asked his parents, asked other oldsters, and they all said the same thing.

Grimy, they told him, you got to understand the times. Things were hard, people were confused, and the world seemed to be spinning out of control. The Godders were big on control, offering it up as the solution for all of life’s uncertainties.

The old folks told Grimy that in this sea of doubts, well-meaning folks were busy bickering amongst themselves. They split into smaller groups and fought with one other. While they were wrangling, the Godders were getting a solid grip on the levers of power. They wormed their way into the courts, into the police departments, and most importantly, they elected like-minded politicians. Before you knew it, the Godders had the power, the bullets, and the borders. Once they got a good grip on all that power, they weren’t shy about using it.

Grimy knows the rest of the sad story because he lived it. He remembers. By the time regular folks could see the writing on the wall, clear and bloody, it was too late. Things went from bad to worse. He was just a scruffy kid running with other scruffy kids. He didn’t notice the changes in the same way his parents did. But it all got real clear when his mom and dad gathered the family up one cold night, made the jump, and got the hell out.

But that’s years and water under the bridge and all the heathens under as well. Grimy can’t waste time on history. There’s nothing left of his childhood world, nothing but the Godders running everything on their side, pretending to walk the narrow path even when they’re crooked as a hound’s leg.

Grimy splashes into a circle of light and finds Big-Ski and those same three boyos who tried to give him a whacking. Everyone’s pals again, of course, the four of them sharing a bite of gnaw and passing around a bottle.

The lads hallo him all friendly-like and he hallos them back. The bottle dodges in Grimy’s direction and he’s glad of it. Big-Ski gives him a huge smile and a whack between the shoulder blades. Grimy knows the big ox means well, but the blow almost knocks the drink from his mouth. Spilling anything is a waste and wasting anything is a crime. Drink most especially.

The four big fighters eye little Grimy while he’s busy catching his breath and trying to hold his grog at the same time. One boyo is sporting a shiner, no doubt courtesy of Big-Ski. Still and all, it’s grins and banter all around, with memories of blows and bruises laid aside. Billy, the one with the black eye, chides Grimy as he passes the bottle.

“You look to be coming from the edges, Grimy, only where’s your coat? You’re supposed to be scrounging, not losing.”

The others chuckle over that. They’re waiting for a tale, and Grimy does his best to spin it out proper.

“Right you are, Billy Brant, scrounging I was and far out on the edge. Someone’s got to bring home the goods for you lazy fighters.”

That sets them all to laughing and earns Billy a few finger pokes as well. They’ve been at it for a bit and the bottle makes them an easy audience. Grimy knows a good audience when he sees one and he keeps the words flowing.

“You know the rhyme, Billy. Button and marble, trinket and tool, a scrounger harvests the trash of the fool. Only it was me almost got harvested and lost my coat in the doings. A Godder jumped me, a pretty thing with a grip like a monster. Came out of nowhere she did. Had me dead to rights.”

“I bet that woke you quick,” says Billy, “How’d you dodge her then?”

“Luck was with me, boyos. She had strong claws, but she made the mistake of going for my coat instead of my throat. Gave me time for a bit of the quick talk and a head bash to her nose. I left her bloody, but I had to skin out of my coat as well. So here I am, empty-handed and sorry for it. I expect I’ll have to go back for the coat. Can’t waste a good mac.”

Nods all around and a pass of the bottle. The truth is, Grimy was almost snagged. He knows it and the boys know it. Given what happens to anyone unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the Godders, the boys don’t ride Grimy too hard. Big-Ski tries to make it easier in his clumsy way.

“Aw, no worries, Grimy,” says he. “You’re just a wee squirt and scrounging is dangerous work. A bit of bad luck and no more. The coat will be there, sure as anything. What’s a pretty Godder want with your filthy old mac?”

He slaps Grimy another one on the back, gentle as Big-Ski’s blows go, but the force of it near knocks Grimy’s head off. Quick Jim is grinning like a hyena, not ready to let the story go.

“Maybe you should have gone with her, Grimy,” says Quick. “She might have done more than comfort your filthy soul. There’s other bits need salvation as well.”

The circle of light fills with the men’s laughter and it’s a good thing because laughing pushes out the fear. A scrounger who gets snagged is never seen again and a fighter who goes down never returns. It’s no laughing matter, and each man knows it, which is why a body has to laugh all the harder. Lose your laugh and you’ll never go near the edges again. Then who would do the scrounging or the fighting?

The truth of it is life is hard down here. Everyone has to do their part. Grimy, he’s little and quick, so he’s a scrounger. Get to the edges, find the goods, bring them back. Others, like Big-Ski and the boys, they’re the fighters. They protect the families that live further on. It’s the scroungers and fighters that live closest to the edge. Together, they make up a buffer of sorts, much as they can.

Fighting doesn’t come often, but it happens. There’s not much rhyme or reason to it, but the fighters have to be ready. In the beginning, the Godders tried to wipe out the heathens, erase them from the face of the earth. But as the years passed and the heathens survived, the Godders realized the continued existence of the heathens was a handy tool.

Grimy and the boys, they understand. The Godders need a boogeyman, someone to blame for all the bad things in their world. The heathens come in all different colors and creeds, so they make damn fine scapegoats. Hell, the heathens even speak different languages. Don’t matter to the Godders if it’s a hurricane, plague, or pestilence. Whatever evil happens, it’s the heathens who caused it.

Every few years, a new boss will rise up amongst the Godders. That’s when the fighting starts up again. A boss man only stays boss if he shows how tough he is. And with the Godders, the boss is always a man. They can’t abide a woman being bossy.

The heathens aren’t picky about whether someone is a he, she, or whatever. they can’t afford that nonsense. There are women fighters, same as women scroungers. Some of the fiercest fighters are women. It’s easy to reckon when you remember all the shit Godders dumped on the womenfolk.

Back before they took power, what scared them holy Godders most, besides maybe sex, was the idea that women might get the upper hand over the men. They preached that women were less than men to smash the womenfolk down, then used the laws and the courts to keep them down.

The image of a strong woman still scares the bejesus out of those fools. That’s why so many strong heathen women become fighters. The Godders might be willing to go three of four up against a fella like Big-Ski, but a fierce woman coming at them unmans them. They turn tail and run for the safe side of the edges.

But here and now, there are the five boyos laughing with Grimy in the center of it, and all of them happy to be there. Then Big-Ski pushes himself to his feet, and a considerable push it is given his size. He scoops Grimy up by the armpit until the little scrounger is standing beside him. The lads are grinning at the mismatched pair, waiting for another laugh. Big-Ski addresses them all pomp and circumstance like he’s on the stage somewhere.

“M’Lords, if you’ll excuse us, this brave knight has lost his armor and we are off to recover it. Pray, keep the home fires burning and the castle secured until our return.”

Those three boyos start burbling like a kettle on the hob. Then Big-Ski mimes a whispered aside in Grimy’s ear, but his voice roars out at full volume.

“C’mon, Grimy. Let’s go save your coat!”

The lads boil over with laughter as Big plants a hand on Grimy’s shoulder and pushes him forward.

The two men, big and small, head back into the tunnels that lead to the edge lands, back to where Grimy last saw his mackinaw. Big-Ski is beside him, ducking his fat melon under low culverts and steel rungs, moving fast and easy for such a big man. The friendly laughter fades behind them until all Grimy can hear is their footfalls splashing and echoing off the slimy walls.

Then the pair of them are out of the tunnels and into the edge lands proper, amongst the middens of refuse thrown away by the Godders. They probably think it’s a clever insult, using trash to demarcate the line between heathen and Godder lands. Insult or no, the castoffs are the bread and butter of the scrounger’s trade.

The two men move careful and quiet now, eyes alert, but the truth is Grimy has got no worries. Big-Ski takes up a lot of space beside him. Grimy feels like a kid who’s brought his big brother to bash the bullies, all cocky and brash. Then he sees his brag for what it is, knowing that if he were alone, he’d be slinking and dodging, just like always.

The realization sets him back. Before he can stop it, a question blurts out of his pie hole.

“Hey Big, you ever wonder about all of this, how we ended up heathens and all?”

Big-Ski grins down his shoulder at Grimy.

“Naw, I got nothing to wonder at,” says Big. “My mum and dad told me all about it. Where did that Godder jump you?”

Grimy peers at the narrow paths that wind through the midden piles, then points to his left. They’re close now, and he scans the gaps between heaps of rubbish, looking for any sign of the Godder girl. The question is still dogging Grimy and he’s not paying as much attention as he should, but Big is here so there’s that.

“I didn’t mean wondering how we got here,” says Grimy. “I guess I’m asking do you ever have doubts about all this. I’m always thinking about it. Rolling it around in my head, you know?”

Then Grimy hears a thing he never thought he’d hear out in the edges. Big-Ski is laughing, laughing out loud where any stray Godder might hear.

“Yeah, Grimy, I got doubts. I doubt those lads will save us a drink. I doubt any of this shit will last forever. Maybe a long time, but not forever. I think about it all the time. But you answered your question while you were asking it.”

Grimy feels puzzlement flash across his mug and feels like an idiot. Big-Ski sees his confusion and lays a hand on Grimy’s shoulder, far gentler than Grimy thought Big was capable of.

“Think about it, Grimy,” says Big. “Doubting and thinking are the very things that make us who we are. We argue about everything, right? Every heathen has a different idea about this or that. Hell, we’re a rabble of ideas. The Godders call us heathens because they don’t know any better. They never were the brightest bulbs in the pack. Those holier-than-thou bastards should call us polytheists or polyglots. Or maybe polliwogs. Ha! Polliwogs, wogs, get it?”

Big-Ski elbows Grimy in jest, almost knocking him over in the process. The big man saves the little scrounger with a steadying hand, then smiles down at him.

“Look at it this way, Grimy. The Godders can’t abide the idea of doubt, much less folks thinking their own thoughts. That’s why they were in such a frenzy to take over everything and boss everyone. Some poor fool might think up something outside their narrow path and then their whole show would come crashing down. So have your doubts and think your thoughts. Meanwhile, I believe we found your mac.”

Big points to a swath of red plaid crumpled in a heap on the ground. Grimy picks it up and flaps it hard, shooting dirty droplets through the air. Big-Ski shields his face with one big paw.

“Hey, Grimy, looky here!” says Big-Ski, pointing a finger big as a sausage.

Grimy looks where Big is pointing and sees a fine skein of blood spray on the shoulder of dirty mac.

“A fine day’s work, my lad. You escaped your Godder and drew blood into the bargain.”

Grimy hears something clang, maybe metal dislodged by a careless step. Big-Ski hears it too, and in an instant, they’re both of them ready for fighting or running. Grimy jerks a thumb back toward the tunnels and whispers low.

“Overstayed our welcome, Big.”

Big-Ski nods his head and hisses an answer.

“You’re in the lead, Grimy. I’ll cover the rear.”

Then the pair of men are moving fast across the edge land, retracing their steps past heaps of discarded treasures, slipping into the tunnels where dark and doubt protect them from salvation.