Men Are Trouble
2004 by James Patrick Kelly, Inc. First Published in
Asimov's Science Fiction, June, 2004.

I stared at my sidekick, willing it to chirp. I’d already tried
watching the door, but no one had even breathed on it. I
could’ve been writing up the Rashmi Jones case, but then I
could’ve been dusting the office. It needed dusting. Or having a
consult with Johnnie Walker, who had just that morning opened
an office in the bottom drawer of my desk. Instead, I decided to
open the window. Maybe a new case would arrive by carrier
pigeon. Or wrapped around a brick.

Three stories below me, Market Street was as empty as the rest
of the city. Just a couple of plain janes in walking shoes and a
granny in a blanket and sandals. She was sitting on the curb in
front of a dead Starbucks, strumming street guitar for pocket
change, hoping to find a philanthropist in hell. Her singing was
faint but sweet as peach ice cream. My guy, talking ‘bout my
guy. Poor old bitch, I thought. There are no guys -- not yours,
not anyone's. She stopped singing as a devil flapped over us,
swooping for a landing on the next block. It had been a beautiful
June morning until then, the moist promise of spring not yet
broken by summer in our withered city. The granny struggled up,
leaning on her guitar. She wrapped the blanket tight around her
and trudged downtown.

My sidekick did chirp then, but it was Sharifa, my about-to-be
ex-lover. She must have been calling from the hospital; she was
wearing her light blue scrubs. Even on the little screen, I could
see that she had been crying. "Hi Fay."

I bit my lip.

"Come home tonight," she said. "Please."

"I don’t know where home is."

"I'm sorry about what I said." She folded her arms tight across
her chest. "It's your body. Your life."

I loved her. I was sick about being seeded, the abortion,
everything that had happened between us in the last week. I said
nothing.

Her voice was sandpaper on glass. "Have you had it done yet?"
That made me angry all over again. She was wound so tight she
couldn't even say the word.

"Let me guess, Doctor," I said, '"Are we talking about me getting
scrubbed?"

Her face twisted. "Don't."
"If you want the dirt," I said, "you could always hire me to
shadow myself. I need the work."