At the Crossroads

In the lull before the holiday lunch rush, Chris stared across the food court. Several last minute shoppers stuffed the remains of their early meals into the brightly colored trash bins. All that uneaten food. All that waste. How many hungry and homeless could it save?

Every year people rushed by, consumed in their quest to give something to others who truly needed nothing as if a month of spending could make up for their greed and callousness throughout the rest of the year. They would throw their loose change into a red bucket and call it even but only when a ringing bell reminded them.

“Hey, Zeus. Que pasa, cuz?” His cousins Jayme and Juanita stood with Pjotr at the far end of the counter, all three dressed their brown and orange Fish Shticks’ uniforms. Chris hated knit polyester. It was hot and even clean it smelled of frying oil. Why weren’t any of them allowed to wear organic cotton?

“Haven’t you heard?” Judy said, “He goes by Chris now.” He turned to find her standing in the doorway to the back arranging her short, black hair beneath her cap as she came on shift.

“Oow, a big shot,” Jayme said. The three across the counter looked at each other and laughed.

“I go by what they call me,” Chris responded. His name didn’t really matter.  

“We’re just messing with you, man.” Pjotr reached across the counter and roughed Chris’s foldout paper hat. He’d forgotten his uniform cap again today. “Hey, we still on for dinner tonight?”

“I scored us the back room at the Garden,” Judy said. “Big enough for all of us. And private.”

Another round of laughter. “Better watch it, cuz, or Magda will get jealous,” Juanita teased as she smiled sidelong at Judy.

“We’re not that way,” Chris said. He turned to find Judy looking at him with a peculiar expression he’d seen from her a lot lately. He wished he knew what it meant.

“If you say so,” Juanita said. “Later, cuz.” The three of them trailed laughter as they headed across the food court to clock in for their shifts.

A pair of teens approached the counter and considered the menu overhead. Before Chris could deliver the required greeting, Judy tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got the register.” She pulled a thumb behind her. “Mr. C. wants to see you in back.”

“Welcome to Your Daily Bread,” she said as he headed for the office. “May I take your order?”

Chris passed through the two chair break area, just across from the backline then snaked around the pre-prep and clean-up stations. Over the scent of hot soups that permeated the restaurant and decay rising from the dishwashing sink, he smelled yeast and flour, the staff of life. Your Daily Bread’s signature side in all flavors, light to dark, sweet to rye.

In the tiny office just big enough for the desk piled high with paperwork that nearly buried the computer, Mr. C. was ensconced in his ergonomic desk chair as if it were a throne. Miss Anna was perched in the guest seat by his side. Stacks of promotional material and posters leaned against the wall behind them.

Chris rapped on the door, but didn’t enter. Miss Anna floated up and squeezed by him sideways. The knit polyester of her uniform vest rasped across his shirt, yielding in a discomforting way his did not. She smiled over her shoulder as she left. She did it just to tempt him, and to make Mr. C. jealous. Mr. C. watched her sashay back to the frontline through the office window mostly obscured by old notices, safety reminders and the schedule.

Unlike the insipid carol loop that was piped through the rest of the food court, Mr. C. had his personal XM receiver tuned to the O’Really Hour as usual. Today, O’Really was ranting that Christmas had become an anti-capitalist redistribution of wealth. Last week he had regaled his enraptured audience with tales of a War on Christmas that bordered on mythic dogma.

The hypocrisy made Chris angry. He was angry a lot lately. Something inside of him had changed, something he didn’t understand. He didn’t feel grounded anymore. More often than not these days he felt detached. As if everything around him were happening in a movie and he could only watch. Unless he was angry. Then everything came into sharp focus for a little while. But he hated the way it made him feel. Judgmental and out of control. Like at the bank.

“Shut the door and take a seat.” Mr. C. was eyeing him oddly. He must have drifted off again.

Chris pulled the door closed behind him and wedged himself in the chair between the desk and the wall, shoulders hunched inward and hands upon his knees so that he didn’t encroach on the desk.

“Miss Anna’s just been telling me there have been some discrepancies in our inventory again,” Mr. C. said gravely. “Do you know anything about it?”

Chris shook his head, his eyes cast downward on his feet. Did he really need new shoes? Unfortunately, the law required he have them to work. Eventually, he’d have to buy another pair. Maybe he’d get lucky and find some castoffs at the thrift store again.

“Look Chris, this has got to stop. One more incident and your next stop’s the unemployment line. Or jail, like those hoodlums you hang around.”

“They’re my cousins,” Chris said quietly.

“I don’t care who they are. I don't want to see them by the back door after we close.”

“I’m their ride home.” Chris shrugged apologetically.

“They’re thieves,” Mr. C. said, his chair creaking as he leaned forward. “That Russian boy carries a knife.”

“They’ve never stolen anything,” Chris said.

“Security caught them carrying bags of store products across the parking lot.”

Chris just looked at him passively. “They were cleared of that. The inventories never came up off.”

“That just means no one can figure out how they stole it.” Mr. C sighed as he leaned back. “I should have been able to make you a supervisor by now, Chris. You’re conscientious. Kids like Judy worship you. But after the incident with El’azar, what am I supposed to do? What would you do in my situation?”

Chris looked up and considered. Mr. C. seemed to be asking a genuine question. But he’d never been very good at judging the intentions of others.

“Have you thought about my idea of giving the leftover bread to the homeless shelter each night?” he asked.

Mr. C.’s face clouded. He must have said something wrong.

“I’ve already told you, that’s not possible. Too much liability for the franchise. We’re not running a soup kitchen here.”

Chris just looked at him. Did he even understand what he’d just said?

“After the stunts you pulled at Fish Shticks and Communal Wine, you’re lucky to have a job anywhere in this mall.” Mr. C continued. “We won’t even talk about that scene at Churchill Bank last week.”

“She needed the loan,” Chris said softly. “I only did what was right.”

“What’s right?” Mr. C. exploded. “How is two grand in property damage right?”

Chris looked down at his shoes and said nothing. Mr. C. would never understand.

“You’re just lucky I convinced the branch manager to let you work it off. And that’s only because I don’t think you thought of it yourself. I think you listened to those hoodlums’ bad advice. But the only reason you’re still working here is because I’m an elder at your father’s church.”

“He’s my stepfather,” Chris said.

“Whatever. I told Joe I’d help you out. But one more problem and I’ll bounce you right back to being a laminator at Bamboo Yew. Or worse if this inventory comes up short.” Mr. C. turned back to his computer, apparently finished with him.

“And El’azar?” Chris asked, not moving from his seat.

Mr. C. eyes rose slowly, brimming with fire. Unafraid, Chris held his gaze until Mr. C. snatched up a pencil and started working out the daily numbers on a clipboard. Chris generally avoided confrontation but wouldn’t back down from what was right.

“Check the schedule.” Mr. C. tapped the glass with the pencil. “You’ll find he’s on it. That might change depending on what corporate has to say. Now get back to work. You can start by scrubbing out the grease trap for the Baconator.”

Chris rose and opened the door. He was halfway through it when Mr. C. added, “I’m not prejudiced you know.”

Chris turned back and looked at him. Then why do you keep a separate set of files for all the immigrants who apply, he thought but for once did not say. With a flip of Mr. C.’s hand, Chris was dismissed.

He paused at the window just long enough to consult the schedule. El’azar’s name was scrawled at the bottom with a handful of shifts.

Chris set off to retrieve the degreaser and a scrub brush. He hated the Baconator. Just the smell of it made him feel unclean. But Mr. C. knew that.

***

Chris rolled the mop bucket to the back door, one of its wheel thumping as it wobbled over the terra cotta tiles. One of his last chores before he could clock out. Outside in the common cleanup area, he dumped the grey water then began hosing down the non-skid mats from the kitchen and scrubbing the metal screens from over the grills. The work was almost meditative but he hated the scent of kitchen waste and rubber mixed with the acerbic orange degreaser. It reminded him of his days at Bamboo Yew. He enjoyed working with his hands but he couldn’t tolerate the chemicals involved.

As he hauled the last of the mats back inside, he found a trash bag full of the leftover bread waiting by the door. Judy must have bagged it up while he’d been working. He heard her clomping around the stockroom and poked his head in. She was collecting the supplies she needed to restock the front. She paused when she saw him in the doorway.

“Miss Anna was back here all day doing inventory,” Judy said. “It’s a miracle she didn’t find anything missing.”

Chris just smiled. He noticed Judy was still wearing her Doc Martens. Miss Anna had asked Mr. C. to ban them, at least for the women. She said they conveyed the wrong impression to the guests.

“I was thinking maybe tonight we send the pickup to Mother Mary’s,” Judy continued.

“We’ve talked about this, Judy,” Chris sighed.

“And all we’ve done is talk,” Judy said, grabbing up a stack of cups. “Those women could really use some of what we’ve collected. You know the shelter’s budget has been slashed again this year.”

“The people who need it most live at 5 Night Salvation this time of year,” he said looking around the stock room. Why was everything they used plastic and disposable? Why couldn’t they go green? “Maybe next time.”

“Three years and it’s always maybe next time.” She strode over to the boxes of plastic utensils, snatching up handfuls of what she needed. “I’m tired of maybe next time.”

“The homeless have a greater need,” Chris insisted as patiently as he could. Why did other people need him to show them the obvious? Why couldn’t they see them for themselves? It was so distracting and frustrating.

“Greater than women who’ve been assaulted by their husbands and children who’ve been abused?” She pulled down a box of paper napkins.

“If things get bad enough, they all end up at 5 Night Salvation. For most of them, they aren’t.”

“You can’t be serious.” Judy stopped to stare at him. “I think you’ve lost touch with the community we’re trying to help. You have no idea what these women go through.”

“The homeless have it worse,” Chris said. He found an empty box and began placing the things she’d collected in it. “That’s all I need to know.”

“Maybe you’d understand if you didn’t live the perfect life with the perfect mother and father.” Judy dumped in the additions from her arms.

“He’s my stepfather,” Chris said, arranging the items neatly in the box.

“But he acts like a real father, which is something most of these women never had. Maybe if Joe had beaten you or hit on you, you’d have more compassion.”

Chris paused to look at her. “Your stepfather can’t hurt you anymore, Judy. He’s gone. You need to let him go.”

“This isn’t about me,” she said, rummaging through another shelf for a box of salt packets. “This was supposed to be about us helping people. These women need us.”

“I can’t help everyone.” An edge crept into his voice. Why did they all think he could? Why did they all look to him?

“You make it sounds like you’re doing this alone,” Judy spat, tossing the salt in the box followed by the pepper. “We’re the ones taking all the risks. Pjotr almost ended up in jail.”

“Without me, you’d all be reduced to stealing,” Chris stated, angry now. “You and Simone can go play Robin Hood if you want. But not with me. You knew that from the beginning.”

“I bet it’d be different if Magda suggested it,” she sneered, snatching up the box.

Chris stared at her, stunned. Where had that come from? Judy glared back then turned away as if searching the shelves for anything she’d missed. Silence settled over them like a shadow. It echoed through the empty restaurant like their anger.

Judy broke it first. “Mr. C. offered me a supervisor position today,” she said softly, not looking up at him. “It comes with a raise. But it probably means we wouldn’t be working together as much. I’d be opening instead of closing.”

“Will they let you work backline?” he asked. She’d been pressing Mr. C. and Miss Anna for more than a year.

“Depends on whether Miss Anna leaves. You know they’re getting married, right?” Her green eyes sparkled mischievously at letting out the secret. “It’s kind of funny both of them seem to think a woman’s place is in the kitchen, but only at home.”

Chris paused to consider until his patience had refilled. He needed to remember she was young. All his friends were. Had he ever been that young? “Maybe you should take it,” he finally said.

Judy looked at him in the same peculiar way as earlier. Was she hurt?

“Yeah, well, I don’t know.” She took a step toward the door. “I told them I’d think about it.” She fell silent again, clutching the box, ready to return to the front.

“You want some help restocking?” he asked. “I’m done back here. We can walk over to the Garden together.”

“You go ahead,” Judy said, looking through the box to see if she had missed anything. “I’ve got some stuff to do before I can leave. I’ll catch up when I’m finished.”

“I’ll drop the collection on my way out,” he said, nodding toward the bag of bread.

“Yeah, ok. I’ll tell Ada.” Judy no longer looked at him. Had he said something wrong?

“I’ll see you at the Garden then. Don’t forget our tip money.”

Judy nodded and headed toward the front.

Chris clocked out, then picked up the bag and keyed the alarm on the back door. Instead of exiting out into cleaning area, he turned down the unpainted access hall that led to the backs of the regular shops.

The squeak of his nonskid work shoes echoed in the unpainted concrete corridor as he passed the brown, metal doors that were the mall stores employee and delivery entrances. All the others were long gone. For retailers, closing took only fifteen minutes not half an hour or more like the restaurants.

He pressed the push bar on the door nearest the walk-in clinic and exited into an alcove that held three bolted down mini-dumpsters that were screened from the parking lot by a cinderblock wall. Two were marked with the broken circles of orange biohazard stencils. The last was plastered with red skull and crossbones indicating poison. It had been Judy’s idea to repurpose an unused container after Pjotr had been stopped in the parking lot. The medical waste disposal agency never touched it because they didn’t think it was theirs. Poison Control didn’t know it was there. The perfect drop site she’d said because no one would ever dumpster dive it. Felipe had changed the lock and ground a set of duplicate keys.

Chris slipped the bag of day-old bread through the mailbox style drop-chute. Pjotr or Andrea would come by with their bags next, then Juanita or Jayme in turn. They each scrounged what they could, all according to Chris’s instructions. Judy worked out the details and handled the accounting of their collective tips which they used as communal finances. In a couple hours, Ada would make the pickup on her final security round then deliver everything to 5 Night Salvation on her way home. Tonight, that would have to wait until after dinner. Chris hoped Pjotr remembered to pack the fish in ice as he emerged into the twilight and wandered across the parking lot to meet the others.

***

The back dining room of the Garden of Vegan was aglow in flickering electric candlelight. The long table was piled high with the bounty known simply as The Feast, platters heaped with luscious fruits and exotic vegetables, bowls filled with an assortment of olives from green to black, trays with vegan antipasti dishes and a Mediterranean sampler. Though no one quite trusted the Caesar salad despite the all vegan claims of the menu. Something about the Parmesan substitute just didn’t ring true. A hollowed-out pumpernickel round had already been decimated to scoop out a creamy spinach and artichoke dip which now dripped and ran down its wounded side. The baker’s dozen around the table had turned their attention to the overflowing basket of pitas and the saucer of olive oil mixed with herbs.

By the time Judy arrived, the gathering had started on their second round of wine. A rich, bright, vegan Shiraz. The waitress had never brought out wine glasses, so instead Magda had begun decanting the house red into water goblets. Now she was curled up in a chair next to Chris, playfully tempting him with the perfect strawberries she’d picked out from the fruit tray by dangling them over his mouth, her fingertips stained the same color as her lips.

“What’s she doing here,” Judy asked. “I thought this was a private celebration.”

“Leave her be, Judy,” Chris said. “I invited her. She as much a part of this as you are.”

Judy took a seat in the empty chair between Pjotr and Juanita on the opposite side of the table, hooking her purse over its back to lay her claim. “Well, I hope she’s contributing because all this will cost a fortune.”

“It’s not like you’ll have to worry about money for much longer,” Magda said. Chris tore off a hunk of his pita, scooped up some eggplant caponata and handed it across the table.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Judy asked, folding the pita over before take a bite. A trail of juice dribbled onto the table.

“You’re taking the promotion, right,” Magda said. “What’s that, another twenty dollars a week?”

“Thirty,” Judy said, sopping up the spot on the table with the white, cloth napkin which came away stained a bloody blackish red. “After taxes. I’m still considering it.”

“I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, given what they’ve offered,” Chris said, taking a sip from his goblet. He didn’t usually drink, but tonight was a celebration. They’d waited a long time to all be together. Christmas Eve was the one night everyone was guaranteed to have off.

Judy just glared at him. When Magda offered him another strawberry, she snagged the carafe in front of Pjotr and poured a very full goblet of her own. She began catching up.

***

As evening wore into night, the room grew warm, loud, and heady with the commingled scents of wine, sweat, and expensive perfume. Soon all that remained of The Feast was the basket of never-ending pitas and the Shiraz, just enough to nourish body and soul, Chris thought. Sustenance and lifeblood. He took in his friends around the table. This might be the last time they were all together. Everyone was changing. Soon they would be ready to move on. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold them all together.

At one end of the table Pjotr was playing with his new butterfly knife, whipping it open and closed in a flashing blur of circles as Bar-Talmai, Alpha Jim and Andrea drew back in surprise. Directly across, Juanita looked drowsy from too much wine. At the other end, Matty and Ada were deep in conversation with Simone as she zealously condemned the policy changes at the bank after the loan fiasco. In a lull, Chris heard someone say, “Maybe if the Christians hadn’t co-opted a bunch of pagan symbols, they wouldn’t have this problem.” Someone else responded, “Word.” Tomas and Jayme looked upset, while Felipe turned to Chris with a quizzical expression as if seeking an explanation. He only shrugged and smiled back through a haze of wine.

Beside him, Magda was now showing off the collection of expensive perfume samples the manager at Harrods had given each of the girls in the lingerie department as a gift. She nattered on about the top and bottom notes as she waved each card under his nose in turn and speculated how they might interact with her body chemistry. She did smell nice. Her scent was warm and soothing, relaxing Chris in a soft way that none of his other women friends did. Feminine like his mother. She was the only one who could make him forget and set down his burdens for a little while. She expected nothing of him.

He looked up to find Judy glowering at Magda from across the table as she unfolded another card for him to sniff.

“You should donate those to the cause,” Judy said. “They are the exact sort of thing the women at Mother Mary’s need.”

Magda glared back at her. “Why should I? They were given to me.”

“It’s not like we don’t all know what your boss was trying to buy,” Judy said, her green eyes sparkling with wine.

“Maybe if you dressed a like girl instead of a construction worker, someone would actually notice you,” Magda snapped, gathering up the samples possessively. “Maybe a little perfume once in a while and you wouldn’t be alone.”

“And maybe,” Judy said between sips of wine, “you’re just jealous that I don’t need to dress like a whore just to get a raise. What did you give him in return, a private modeling session in the dressing rooms?”

Magda reddened, clutched the cards to her chest then fled the room in tears.

“I think someone’s Secret Santa has a guilty conscience,” Judy sniped at Magda’s retreating back. “What a selfish little drama queen.”

“Give it a rest, Judy,” Chris said with a sigh as he refilled his own glass. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“It would be one thing if she helped us by collecting toiletry samples,” Judy said, still glaring at the doorway through which Magda had disappeared. “It’s not like she needs to keep everything for herself.”

“They’re a small gift that makes her feel good,” Chris said. “And that makes me feel good.”

“That’s the problem, Chris,” Judy emphasized his new name as she turned to face him, “You’ve lost sight of what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s not just about you.”

“What I’ve already accomplished,” he shot back, his anger rising. Why did she bring that out so quickly in him now? “Everyone here sees things differently since they met me. As I recall, you came a little late to the party.”

“Without me, there would be no party,” she said, rattling her purse as she set it on the table with a thump. “Without my efforts, all this would have ended long ago. It still might if you’re not careful.”

“I just hope your new friends serve you half as well,” Chris whispered around his glass.

“What exactly are you getting at?” Judy asked. “Why don’t you just come out and say it instead wrapping yourself in some enlightened enigma.”

“You don’t see any of the others trading their old friends for new.” With a sweep of his hand, Chris encompassed the entire table. Absorbed in their own conversations and the vagaries of the wine, none of the others noticed the growing confrontation. “None of them would sell us out.”

“You’d really like that wouldn’t you? You always did have a martyr complex.” Judy shook her head and laughed. “You think you know everything about everyone but you can’t even see that Magda has a thing for you.”

Chris’s mouth dropped open.

“You know Miss Anna does, too, right?” she continued in a conspiratorial voice. “I mean, who wouldn’t? Just look at you. You collect women like a herd of mares.” She laughed and took another sip of wine. “You’ve got a serious problem and don’t even know it.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?” he spat, as angry now as he’d been at the bank. “Why don’t you go spend some time with your new friends and get back to me? Maybe they’ll invite you to the wedding. Unlike the rest of us, you’ve got the right name to do more than clean their house.”

Judy’s face reddened as if she’d been slapped. “Is that what you really think?”

“When has what I thought ever mattered to you? You just charge ahead and do what you want regardless of the consequences.”

“No, Chris, I’ve holding this together while you’ve been falling apart,” she countered. “You know how much I’ve done for you. How much I’d do. I was the one who told you about those files in the first place.”

“And yet you were never in them,” he said, crossing his arms.

“That’s unfair,” she protested. “I’ve had to fight just like the rest of you. And now you want to treat me like I don’t belong? Maybe I would be better off somewhere else.”

“Then go,” he commanded, pointing toward the door. “And pay the bill on your way out. We’ll be right behind you as soon as we finish off the bread and wine. We wouldn’t want anything to go to waste.” He raised his glass in one hand and a half a pita in the other.

Judy knocked over a salt shaker snatching up her purse. As she fled into the shadows, the others stirred from their celebratory stupor just long enough to notice Chris’s raised glass. Scrounging pitas first, they lifted their own in return. “To life,” someone shouted. A chorus of eleven voices echoed the sentiment in unison, their eyes gleaming like the electric candles. Only Chris remained silent, uncertain of what he had just done.  

***

Soon after, the waitress and the busboy began hovering in the doorway. In the bar a clock chimed midnight. Christmas Eve had become Christmas Morning. The staff longed to go home but it was against policy to ask anyone to leave.

Slowly, the others collected their belongings, hugged and drifted out after saying their goodbyes, leaving Chris with only Pjotr and his cousins. He was their ride.

Chris was pensive and sullen. The others knew not to talk to him when he was like this. Pjotr toyed with his knife for a little while then settled deeper into his chair as his eyes drifted shut. Juanita’s head was already on the table. Jayme’s soon joined it.

Chris reflected on the evening as he rolled two olives around each other in a bowl with his finger, one black, one pale. The wine had left a sour taste in his mouth. He thought about what Judy had said. Had he truly lost sight?

“We should check to make sure the pickup went ok,” he finally said. Bleary eyed, the others stirred. Pjotr pocketed his knife. They wandered out of the restaurant together, the waitress unlocking the door for them and relocking it behind them. The parking lot was mostly dark and empty. A slight chill had crept into air. A damp haze pooled beneath the stanchions with the pinkish parking lot lights.

As the four of them approached Chris’s car, a beat up, third-hand VW bug, a small, familiar shadow detached itself from a nearby sedan and moved to intercept them. On the far side of the parking lot, Chris noticed the yellow flashing light as a security vehicle made its final rounds. He wondered if Ada was driving.

“Give us a minute,” Chris said to the others. He left them clustered behind him. In the rising fog they became as indistinct as ghosts. Judy hunched deeper into her coat as he approached.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes fixed on the ground at his feet.

“It’s ok,” he said, “we both had too much…” He was cut off as she threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight. Her body was hard, and shaking. Her uniform smelled of kitchen work and corruption. He held her a moment then gently pushed her away. Tears trickled down her face.

“Hey, what’s all this,” he said in a soothing voice. From the corner of his eye, he saw the lights of security car creeping closer.

“Whatever happens, I just needed to say I loved you,” she said. Before he could react, she flung herself into his arms again and kissed him, a long, passionate, yielding kiss. After a moment, he surrendered. He kissed her back.

A moment later, she disengaged. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. They held each other’s gaze for just a second then simultaneously looked away. No more words passed between them as Judy turned to go.

In stunned silence, Chris watched her fade into the darkness.

“What was that about?” Pjotr asked, suddenly standing beside Chris along with his cousins.

Before Chris could answer, all three were bathed in the headlights of the now rapidly approaching security vehicle. A gleaming white Honda Pilot pulled up beside them, Crossroads Mall Security emblazoned in blue on the door, its yellow-orange light swirling over them in waves.

Pjotr’s butterfly knife appeared in his hand with a sudden series of flashing clicks, the naked blade poised to sting the first security guard that strayed within range. Another nearby sedan pinned them with a spotlight as red and blue flashers exploded on its dashboard.

“Put away that away, Pjotr” Chris said. “That’s not how this goes. They’re here for me this time.”

Reluctantly, Pjotr complied. “She did this, didn’t she,” he said as he slipped the knife back into his pocket.

“It’s probably best if you three head home without me,” Chris said, handing Pjotr his keys. 

The security guard eyed them disdainfully from a few feet away while his partner flanked them from around the back of the SUV. Both men looked like weightlifters.

“Jesus Cristobal Salvador,” the first guard addressed Chris once the other man was in position, “We have some questions for you regarding a theft from your employer. We have a surveillance video. You need to come with us.”

“Are you three with him?” his partner asked, a hand resting on his taser. The others exchanged glances then mutely shook there heads. “Then I suggest you get going. I better not see any of you around here again before the mall opens if you know what’s good for you.”

With one hand on either arm, the security guards guided Chris to their waiting SUV. As Pjotr, Juanita and Jayme retreated to a safe distance, the two men ushered Chris into the backseat then drove through the parking lot trailing a police escort.

They rode in cramped silence.

As the SUV passed a clump of landscaping that doubled as rainwater retention, Chris spotted Judy’s silhouette framed through the window, one hand hanging onto a twisted scrub oak branch overhead. He was confused with emotion. Why had she kissed him? Why had he given in to her temptation? She was so young. She looked up to Chris like he might be her savior but deep down he was just a man, the same as all the rest. Vulnerable and broken, just like her. She looked so devastated now.

When she followed him with her eyes without so much as waving, an ache tore through his chest as if he’d been stabbed. Had she really said she loved him? As the SUV retreated around the corner out of sight, the last of his passion bled away.


© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

While the Earth Remains

Wade eased the Lincoln to a stop along the dark, country road, its gravel popping beneath the tires as if it were paved with tiny bones. Like that spring after the all rains when his father had brought him down to fish and driven through a plague of baby frogs marching up from the river. Wade had begged him to stop the car then covered his ears and cried until his father had threatened him with the belt. “If I’d wanted to hear that, I would’ve brought your sister.”

As he waited, Wade killed the engine which soon began to click and ping in a language he’d never quite understood as it cooled in the autumn air. He’d been running without headlights so his eyes needed no time to adjust. Through the tree-lined tunnel ahead, the night sky stood out against the wavering shadow of the trees, midnight blue against black, marking the descent to the river. A blood red moon stained the horizon as it rose up to confront the approaching wedge of clouds. Less than ideal, but it didn’t matter. By morning, no one would find the old man’s body without diving gear.

A spotlight stabbed out from the darkness a few dozen yards away. Wade shielded his eyes with the hand that had been resting on the Lincoln’s side mirror. His heart pounding, he lifted his other hand from the steering wheel to wave.

The spotlight winked out, plunging Wade back into darkness, except where a purple afterimage danced across his vision and the low, orange candle of its filament slowly faded. A car door creaked open and slammed shut. Boots crunched across the gravel as if crushing cicada carcasses in late summer, each footfall an approaching dread. They halted a few feet back from his door.

A flashlight beam nearly as harsh as the spotlight roamed across Wade’s face then settled on the fishing gear in the passenger seat. He was glad he’d stowed all the tools in the trunk. 

“Road’s closed.” Wade sighed with relief as he recognized Clint’s voice. “You couldn’t have missed the sign, Wade. You had to drive around it.”

“Going down to the river,” Wade said as he turned the key halfway to create a bubble of light for them to share. “I hear the catfish are biting.”

“This stretch of river’s off limits until the lake fills. You know that. They close the spillways tonight.”

“It’s not like I’m going into Canaan, Clint. Just down to the shore. You know that spot dad and me used to fish.”

“Yeah, I was sorry to hear about that.” Clint leaned on the door, resting his other hand on his gun by instinct. “Where you going to bury him?”

“He always wanted to be buried in Canaan, right beside my mom. But she’s already dug up and resting in that new graveyard up on the ridge. I expect I’ll try to get him in there.”

“Old Claude would like that, I think.” Clint nodded his approval. “Six weeks and everyone in the hills will be lakeside. Who’d of thought your folks would have made it up that far.”

Wade laughed. His parents were bottomlanders. These days, only rich people from other states could afford houses on the ridge.

 “I see you’re driving his Town Car,” Clint continued, giving the car a long once over. “Guess it’s yours now.”

“Just testing it out to see how it fits. I think it’s too big for me, too quiet. I just can’t shake the Jeep after all these years. Not sure what I’ll do with it.”

“I sure wish Amelia would see sense and take her half.” Clint ran a hand along its hood.

“Dad was pretty hurt when she didn’t show up for my mom, though he’d never say. But she wants something, it’s hers by my reckoning. Or yours,” Wade added speculatively.

Clint gave him a sidelong look. “Did Claude ever let you in on where your granddad buried the family fortune in the Depression?”

“That old yarn?” Wade shook his head slowly, still smiling. “Trust me, Clint, if there was ever any money in this family, the old man would’ve spent it all buying drinks at the VFW long before now. Or diced it all away down in Biloxi.”

“I guess you’re right. Claude was never stingy with his drinks. Or his cars.” 

Just his kids, Wade thought as Clint sighted another approving gaze down the Lincoln’s hood.

“Tell you what,” Wade said, “Come by in the afternoon, and I’ll sign it over. This ark is more Amelia’s taste than mine. She deserves something. About the only thing worth much that’s left.”

“That’s mighty generous of you, Wade. I just might do that.” Clint paused as if to separate his thoughts. “Guess there’s no harm in you fishing some to honor old Claude’s memory. Give me about five minutes and you can have the river to yourself. ”

“Don’t come by the house too early,” Wade said. “If they’re hitting on nightcrawlers, it could be a late night.”

“Not too late,” Clint warned. “They’re bringing in a chopper after midnight. Army night vision gear. Remember, they catch you and we ain’t kin, or near enough. The Guard’s got orders that looters get shot on sight.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll just be sitting on the bank for a while seeing what strikes. Give my love to my sister.”

“Will do.” Clint waved over his head as he strode back toward his patrol car. “See you tomorrow.”

***

Wade sighed as the patrol car pulled away. Clint wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was blood, at least by marriage. Even he had to know something was up. He’d taken the bribe easily enough. Wade had hoped access to the river wouldn’t cost quite so much. The Town Car still listed for five or six grand. Most of the other cops on the force would’ve have let him slip through the cordon for a cooler full of catfish filets. Leave it to Clint to remember the old man’s stories. He was always looking for a piece of something that wasn’t his.

After glancing at his watch, Wade dug through the glove box for the papers and a pen. Using the glove box door to write on, he signed over the car to Amelia, just in case. All she had to do was countersign it to accept it. If she would. Wade tried to shrug it off as part of the promise he’d made his mother. His life was a series of conflicting promises now, his night a journey to fulfill them.

Once he was certain Clint would not return, Wade restarted the Town Car and crept it toward the river. Unlike his Jeep, the luxury sedan didn’t want to stick to the steep, unpaved road. Twice, it slid downhill where the muddy track decided to take it. The third time Wade felt the tires break free, he jerked the Lincoln to a stop and slammed it into park as soon as he felt the wheels grip gravel. Close enough. He could walk from here.

He set the emergency brake and popped the inside latch to the trunk. The dashboard ding-ding-dinged a polite warning when he left the keys in the ignition. He didn’t lock the doors. Not that anyone local would dare steal the old man’s car. It was only one within fifty miles.

Around the back of the car, Wade began to unload the trunk. He hoped he was still far enough off the river that no one would see his little light. First, he set the red, child’s wagon on the ground. It was the rugged version with slatted side railings and oversized tires. When he and Amelia had outgrown it, his mother had claimed it for the garden. He’d found it in the shed behind the house, rusty and unused. Next, he removed the shovel, the pickaxe and the crowbar. He retrieved the fluorescent fishing lantern from the floor of the front seat.

That only left the body. Ninety pounds of emaciated deadweight, wrapped in a clean, white sheet, curled up just as he’d passed over, in the fetal position. Stiff and unyielding, like the man had always been, yet vulnerable, if only for first time in Wade’s life. At least he would fit in the wagon. Almost as though the old man had planned ahead. That would be just like him.

Wade lifted his father out of the trunk like an infant and gently set him in the cradle of the wagon’s bed. He eased the trunk lid down until the mechanism caught and it whispered shut as the light within winked out. He tucked the tools along the wagon’s high railing.

He shrugged deeper into his fatigue jacket, checking the pockets for his gloves and the .45. His father’s jacket and his father’s pistol, both refugees from Vietnam. Neither were combat souvenirs, despite all the old man’s stories. Hanging around the VFW as a kid, Wade had learned that his father had been a company clerk in Saigon, though even that had left its scars. Some cut through the entire family.

Wade knew he’d need the jacket before the night was over. His breath already emerged in thin, white puffs as if he were a smoker like the old man. The pistol was a precaution. The Guard had pulled out of Canaan ahead of the impending flood. That left only squatters and looters. The final inhabitants of Canaan promised to be clever and mean, people he didn’t want to tangle with without protection. Not that he planned to use it if he didn’t have to. Better to remain unseen than right. Another lesson the old man had taught him if only inadvertently.

He clutched the wagon’s handle and dragged his burden down the muddy road. With each step closer to his destination, Wade smelled mud, silt, rot and decay. The scent of the river in the fall.

Along the shore, a fog had begun to form. Faint wisps of mist trailed up to the sky. Wade leaned the handle back against the wagon and settled onto a fallen log by the water. He flicked the lantern on and off three times, its glass screened red by cellophane. A few minutes later, he spotted a red hunting light panning the muddy, tree-lined bank. That would be John B, Wade’s ride into Canaan.

Wade didn’t know John B’s full name or whether that was really his name at all. It was the name on the iron-on patch of the work shirt the man had worn when they’d met at the VFW. Names weren’t crucial to the deal they struck over a couple long-necks in the back. Cash was the agreed on currency, paid upon roundtrip delivery. A time and place for pickup the only other whispered questions asked and answered.

John B haloed Wade in red then doused the spotlight. A dripping paddle replaced the hum of the electric trolling motor, followed by the metallic rasp of a johnboat being grounded. John B splashed out into the mud. Wade grabbed hold of the gunwale and together they hauled it ashore.

John B eyed the wagon. “You didn’t say nothing about a body.”

“No questions was the agreement,” Wade said, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Sure. No questions. But accessory to murder doubles the price. Half up front.”

Wade shook his head. “Deal’s a deal. I pay you now, you’ll just light out and leave me stranded.”

John B shrugged then reached for the boat. “Maybe you can find another ride.”

Wade withdrew his hand from his pocket and tapped the .45 against the johnboat, metal against metal. “You got nothing to worry about from the old man. No one’s coming looking. I’ll pay you what we agreed, plus a cut of whatever I can fit in the wagon while I’m there. As soon as we get back.”

John B eyed the pistol then Wade. He shrugged. “You’re the boss.” A long, smoldering look of “for now” hung between them. Wade didn’t care. Making his way back across the river without a boat would be cold but not impossible. He had promises to keep that could not wait.

“Grab the front end and help me get him in,” Wade said, sliding the pistol back into his pocket. Together they lifted the wagon over the side and set it astride the center bench.

“Get settled,” Wade said. “I’ll shove us off.”

Frigid, muddy water overtopped Wade’s boots as he pushed the johnboat free. As Wade settled on the front bench facing him, John B sparked the trolling motor back to life. Reluctantly, the boat turned away from shore and slowly drifted toward the tree line silhouetted across the water. On the bluffs behind the boat, more trees like the skeletal hands of long dead men clutched their final flame-colored leaves in a candle vigil, like a promise or a hope.

Moonlight dimmed as its mistress hid her face behind the clouds. The far bank, normally winking with warm, yellow lights, disappeared completely. The last Guard unit had retreated that morning ahead of the weather, dropping the only bridge behind them. The river was mirror smooth, but swollen just below flood stage. No current distracted the low-slung boat away from its destination. The Corps of Engineers would have sealed off the spillways by now.

John B said nothing throughout the journey, just surreptitiously studied Wade’s face as he steered them toward a point over his left shoulder. Threads of mist wove themselves into a stillborn fog. All the noises of the river died away, cars sighing down a nearby highway, the mournful whistle of a distant train, night birds, frogs and peepers, leaving only each accidental clank and thunk against the metal hull echoing like gunshots in Wade’s ears.

The fog and the hum of the electric motor became their world. Time lapsed until the johnboat ground ashore with the sound of sand scouring aluminum. Wade hopped out and dragged the boat secure. He and John B lifted the old man’s cradle to shore. John B clamored back into the boat as Wade held it steady.

Before pushing it off, Wade reminded him, “Give me a couple hours then pick me up here. I’ll have your payment.” He patted his jacket pocket and added, “Don’t forget, I’m a man long memory.”

John B said nothing, his face masked by night and fog. Gray obscurity slowly swallowed the receding johnboat without a sound.  

***

Wade dragged his burden up to a nearby road. The fog thinned to almost nonexistent within a hundred yards of the river. Overhead, thick clouds congealed into a low, dark line that loomed to the north.

He had just pulled the wagon’s oversized wheels onto the pavement when the dogs emerged from the shadows of deserted houses. A pack of three that moved as one, long accustomed to hunting together. Abandoned and feral, all were dark and massive with low, squat heads that marked the favored aggressive breeds.

The trio edged forward, spreading left and right to flank him. Flicking his gaze between them, Wade reached beside the road and scooped up a handful of small, flat river rocks. He whistled a smooth stone at the center dog. It skipped off the pavement near the leader’s paws, evoking a low growl through a hedgerow of yellow teeth.

The other two continued to circle, undeterred. Wade chucked stones at one then the other, hissing at them. He wanted to yell but didn’t dare attract attention from looters or lingering patrols. The first river rock sailed wide, the second struck dead on, ricocheting off the dog’s brow with a hollow thunk. Surprised by his unexpected accuracy, Wade allowed his gaze to linger an instant too long, until two snarling shadows flashed across the corner of his eye.

Wade dropped the stones and fumbled in his pocket for the pistol, ripping it free as the hammer caught on the lining. The closer dog leapt. Wade flinched behind the shield of his left arm, turning his eyes away. Pain shot threw his forearm as the dog’s weight bore him to the ground. He descended into a purgatory of angry, growling pain that shook his body left and right. He tried to beat back the agony with the cold metal clutched in his right hand. Darkness nearly claimed him before a single thought surfaced from that black, intruding pool. His primitive tool was still a weapon.

A second later, his world exploded with a fiery shockwave of relief. White hot anguish cooled to a dull, numb ache. Wade sat up, trying to locate the shadows whose receding footfalls remained constantly to his left no matter which way he turned his head. The right side of his world was mired in ringing darkness no matter how hard he blinked. A long moment later, sulfurous residue burned comprehension into his brain as the gun’s report continued to echo through the bottomland.

Half deaf and blind, Wade staggered to his feet clutching the smoking pistol, unsteadily seeking a target. Like apparitions, the pack had merged back into the empty shadows. Only pain grounded them as real.

He returned the pistol to his jacket pocket. He tested his left forearm with probing fingers. No sharp or grinding pain, nothing broken. Dark, damp stains surrounded the tears in his sleeve but he wasn’t bleeding too badly. He flexed the fingers of his left hand tentatively. Stiff, sore and slightly swollen, but moving for the moment. At some point soon, he’d have to find fresh water to cleanse the wound.

As if sensing his need, giant plops of rain slapped against the pavement, then quickly petered out. Higher now, the moon re-emerged as an orange lantern to guide him, even as it played hide and seek among the advancing clouds.

Scraped and bruised, Wade took up the wagon handle and trudged higher into the abandoned city whose streets he knew like childhood memories. He crossed the rusted tracks of the forsaken rail line that ran beside the river. Past the grid work of houses with their wide, black eyes and peeling white paint. Past the cinderblock foundations of the lucky handful that had been removed. Past the bar, the barbeque shack and the four-corner, brick-lined businesses of Canaan’s abortive downtown. Past the single-room church that now stared back at him with a windowless soul where its stained glass had been gouged out. Past the vacant park with its gazebo and the empty base where the bronze, Civil War hero had once brandished his sword to rally Memorial Day politicians. Past the lifeless moat of a parking lot and the wooden drawbridge of the wheelchair ramp that once led to the government stronghold of the Post Office trailer.

Shadows moved among the ghost town silhouettes, flashing across the empty eyes of abandoned buildings and the vacant looks between. When the moon peeked out, some coalesced into the shapes of trees disguised as men, hungry and threatening. During the long night of his childhood, Wade had been haunted by their sylvan fingers scratching at his window. Other shades moved from bush to bush, hunched men or beasts, drawn to his unwanted presence or the scent of decaying meat, cautiously awaiting their opportunity as they paralleled his course as he climbed.

On the hill of the graveyard, beneath the spreading, hundred-year oaks cloaked in moss-draped mourning, government backhoes had unearthed all the graves and left the holes like open wounds. Missing headstones formed the empty sockets of extracted teeth.

Wade knew the path in light or darkness. Twice before, he’d stood watch as his father had started a digging a small, fresh hole for the plastic box holding one or the other of his grandparents’ ashes, the only burial he could afford. Both times, the old man hadn’t been fit enough to finish what he’d started, forcing Wade to take over while he criticized and watched. Twice more Wade had smuggled in bronze grave markers, engraved with names and dates as if they were official. His father had bought them up in Cairo one of the few times he’d been flush. One he’d had Wade dig back up and repair when vandals had broken off his grandmother’s angel, leaving only her ragged ankles and slippered feet. “Honor your parents, boy. A man’s kin shouldn’t be left unmarked.”

Somewhere in the Great Depression, the deed to the family plot had been sold or lost. Wade wondered if the deception had been uncovered when the government had moved the graves up to the ridge. But what could they do but rebury them? In Canaan containers of ashes were as sacred as silk-lined coffins.

“Government’s got no right to say where a man can bury his kin,” the old man carped. “We settled on this land long before they came to tell us what to do.”

For all his vehemence, the old man never once visited. On the anniversary of each of their deaths, he sent Wade down to inspect the graves while he waited behind a beer bottle in the VWF for a report. If Wade complained, the old man would cuff him. “Don’t begrudge your family, boy.”

 When Amelia bowed out, the old man left it to Wade to find a spot for his mother. “Dump her in the river for all I care. She ain’t no real bottomlander.” Wade had purchased a plot nearby for both of them. Half of his mother’s dying wish, to be buried with his father one day by her side. She knew he’d never leave the land on which he’d been raised even though his family had lost it all.

Wade dared not light the fluorescent lantern in the open. He’d have to work by dappled moonlight. He cradled the sheet-shrouded body and lifted it from the wagon. He was glad the cold kept the worst of the smell at bay. Thankfully, the old man remained stiff and easy to handle. In a few hours, he’d be limp and less cooperative.

Wade laid the bundle beside the open hole where his mother’s coffin had, until recently, rested. He puzzled out how best to get the old man down there. As much as he would have liked to, rolling the body down a six foot drop just didn’t seem right. So he hooked the knotted sheet with the pickaxe and lowered the old man, careful not to overbalance and follow him in.

In a nearby oak with long, bushy tendrils of moss that swayed like the beard of an Old Testament prophet, a pair of ravens settled to argue their derision or delight. Wade glared up at them. It wasn’t like he’d planned to leave the old man uncovered. He donned his gloves, took up the shovel from the wagon and began to move earth. As the graveside mound diminished, his shirt clung to his arm with stinging, sticky dampness. His wound throbbed from the exertion. When Wade patted the last shovelful into place, the ravens took flight in mocking laughter. From the surrounding shadows, a tri-note canine chorus howled their frustration at being thwarted from their prey.

He hadn’t brought a stone or even a simple cross to mark the grave. He didn’t want to risk it. When he finished, he didn’t utter so much as a prayer. He just removed his gloves, wiped his brow with the bandana from his back pocket and whispered, “Ok, old man. I kept my side of the bargain. Now let’s see if you’ve kept yours.”

An icy wind drove sheets of rain racing down the ridge toward the city. Wade reloaded the tools into the wagon and descended from the graveyard toward his father’s childhood home. As he passed through the fieldstone pillars that had once held the wrought iron gates marking the border of the cemetery, Wade was engulfed in a stinging swarm of rain. Mud quickly appeared throughout the bottomland, in roads and yards alike. Within minutes the wagon bed had become a shallow, sloshing sea.

Wade hunched against the driving rain and the weight of his sodden jacket. His left arm began to ache more deeply in the seeping cold. He navigated suddenly unfamiliar streets by snapshots of lightning. Thunder chased him through the valley like divine displeasure.

As the first wave eased from inundation to mere torrents, Wade arrived at his final destination, his grandparent’s ancient frontier farmhouse long since crowded by a suburban congregation. He deposited the rattle of tools onto the front porch then dumped the wagon and lifted it up the steps. His head jerked toward the front windows. Had a light just flickered out?

He peered in the paneless windows. Like all the other homes and businesses in Canaan, this one had been scavenged and ransacked soon after the government had declared eminent domain. Silhouetted dark against windowed dim, shadows shuffled within. The rain pounding against the tin of the porch roof drowned out any noise. Bereft of sound, gray figures floated through the rooms like ghosts desperately seeking some memento they’d left behind. Looters. 

Wade scooped up the crowbar in his left hand and retrieved the pistol with his right. Pressed beside the door, he rapped the crowbar against it. With the knob as another salvage victim, the door swung inward without a sound above the rain.

“You’re on private property,” he called inside. “Clear out. I’ve got a gun.”

He began a slow, patient count, just like he’d had to use not to react to the old man’s constant criticism ever since he’d first been diagnosed. When he hit a whispered ten, Wade took a deep breath and peeked around the doorframe. Nothing stirred within the darkness.

He ducked his head back out. He had to risk the lantern. No one would see it through the curtain of water pouring off the roof. He tucked the crowbar through belt loop, flicked the red light on and stepped inside, lantern in his left hand, pistol in his right.

Motion blurred across the corner of Wade’s eye. His left arm shot up instinctively to greet it and collapsed when lightning radiated from his fingers to his shoulder as his wound met the blow which then glanced across his ear like thunder. When the back of his head struck the hardwood floor, his world descended into the darkness of a tomb to the drumbeat of running feet.

***

Wade awoke to a throbbing headache. Each pulse exploded inside his skull, screamed down his neck and shoulder, then died in agony in his arm. A fraction of the pounding resolved into the rumble of thunder. A dim grayness greeted his eyes. Rain still pounded the porch roof like a tin drum.

His cheek was chilled by standing water. Life and breath escaped him as small packets of steam. Yet he was numb to the cold as if warmed by a fire banked deep within.

Slowly, painfully, Wade pushed himself to his feet with one good arm, nearly falling back when the crowbar clattered against the floor like the clapper of a cracked bell. Dizzy, he leaned heavily against the doorframe. His fishing lantern lay smashed just inside the door. There was no sign of the pistol, or the looters.

Behind him the wagon was overturned, his tools scattered. Beyond the porch, the water lapped at the tread of the first step. Wade winced as he bent his left arm to read his watch. Tonight had become tomorrow, two hours after dawn. John B would have ceded the river long ago, had he ever come back. Would he risk a second crossing? Wade would have to wait for nightfall to find out. He just hoped the Town Car was far enough up from the river.

He stooped slowly and deliberately, like the old man near the end, to retrieve the crowbar, securing it back in his belt before wobbling inside. In the front parlor, the thieves had pried open the walls and floorboards, searching for anything that could be stripped for sale, copper wiring, metal pipes or other hidden treasure.

Wade stumbled through the front hall into the kitchen. Missing appliances left unfilled vacancies in the cabinetry. The cast-iron sink and its plumbing had fled with them. He rifled the windowsill, counter and cabinets with his good right hand searching for even a sliver or drop of soap. Squalls through the missing window had washed any lingering residue away. The backyard had become a rain-rippled sea. He needed soap not more dirty water.

As his vision doubled on his way back to the stairs, Wade faltered in the front hall. Then, he spotted her crouching in the corner of the parlor, clad only in a stained, dishwater gray housedress, watching him like a cat.

“Mom?” He leaned against the wall. Its plaster had already begun to crumble and peel in the damp air. His grandfather never had been much for routine maintenance even before he’d lost the place to debts.

“You’re hurt,” she said, her voice as pure as resonating crystal and just as clear. She flowed to her feet and padded across the room, splashing though the puddles on the floor, barefoot like when he and Amelia were kids.

“What are you doing here?” His eyes refused to fully focus. She was haloed in soft blurriness as if Wade had been swimming too long in a backyard pool. Her hair kept shifting from gold to raven black.

“I saw what they did to you,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d wake up.” She ran a finger down his sleeve, tracing the stain around his wound. He pushed away. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I need to find some soap.” He stumbled toward the stairs.

“There’s nothing up there for you.” She restrained him with the lightest touch upon his arm. “Let me take a look.” She eased him out of his sodden jacket. Her touch was gentle but his shoulder was numb to it. Until she unbuttoned his shirt cuff and peeled his sleeve away like a match along a striker, revealing angry red tendrils climbing up and down his arm.

“Sit.” Her hand upon his shoulder pressed him easily to the floor, his back against the wall. Then she left. She came back with a small, disposable aluminum loaf pan, the cheapest kind you’d find in a grocery store, filled with water. “Don’t worry. I collected it from the sky. I’m afraid the river’s rising up to meet us.” She dabbed his bandana and began to softly wipe the dried blood from around his wound. She soaked the four ragged punctures before caressing their scabs away.

“You shouldn’t stay,” she said, tying the bandana like a bandage then camouflaging it with his sleeve.

Still groggy, he tried to sit forward and failed. “Did you see what happened to my pistol?”

She pointed to skid mark in the sheen of mud across the porch that ended at the edge beneath the railing.

Wade slumped deeper against the wall, too tired to retrieve it. Not that he would need it anyway with her watching over him. His eyes began to flutter shut.

“You should never have come here,” she said, the chime of her voice awakening him again like a tug upon his wrist.

“I came for Amelia,” he said, the darkness retreating just a step. “Dad told me where to find it.”

She shook her head gently with the patience of a mother then looked away. “He was wrong to draw you back to this place. Amelia doesn’t need anything from him.”

“I have to take care of her.” Darkness crept closer with each heavy blink. “You made me promise.”

“Promises are for the living,” she smiled wistfully, “Not the dead.”

As the notes of her voice faded like a dulcet echo, so did the light that kept his darkness at bay.

***

When the thump, thump, thump of retreating rotors awakened him, Wade was alone. The light had dimmed to some unknown evening hour. His watch, like his jacket, was gone. Only the crowbar remained, digging into his hip.

His vision stayed sharp this time, his mind icy clear. The edges of the world glinted in as if stropped like an antique razor. He heaved himself up and away from the wall. His feet felt heavy and claylike as if sealed against the floor.

Outside, the rain continued. The front porch was now awash. The overturned wagon formed a little red island just inside the railing. A few more inches and water would overtop the threshold. The farmstead sat in the floodplain by the river. Most of Canaan had been raised on a set of low, ancient mounds. While that earth remained, he might still have time to escape.

First, he needed to retrieve what he had come for, the secret the old man had almost taken to his soon to be submerged grave. John B would demand what Wade had promised if he came back at all. Wade took up the crowbar and turned toward staircase.

Cursing the darkness in the stairwell, he ascended each tread, stolid and deliberate. The quilted flannel of his shirt rested soft and warm against his arm. Damp air pricked his lungs then sank its teeth in deep. Wade knew the cold would gnaw ravenously come nightfall. An icy wind whistled and moaned through the narrow space, giving voice to his family ghosts.

He wended his way through the master bedroom with its upstairs fireplace, soot-stained yet stone cold, then down the back hall to the sloped-ceiling addition overhanging the kitchen and back porch, its overhead slats darkly ringed by ancient water. Standing in the doorway, Wade could almost hear the old man’s voice grumbling how his bedroom had been cold and drafty, and the roof had always leaked, at least when he’d been in a tolerant mood. More often, he’d just reminded Wade and Amelia how lucky they were with his belt. The old man’s father had used a strap.

A raven, perhaps one of the pair from the graveyard, landed on the empty window sill, an inky, iridescent rainbow of feathers in the wan, gray light. It eyed Wade sidelong, tilting its head curiously as it considered him in silence. Wade ignored the bird, concentrating on the oblong door tucked in the far back corner that led to a makeshift closet. In a lucid moment near the end, the old man had relived a memory of Wade’s grandfather tucking away their family legacy decades before the bank had finally claimed the note. The old man had always threatened to redeem it but never seemed to find the luck.

The light outside was failing, though the rain remained vibrant, still beating against the roof and occasionally swirling in on a gust to slicken the hardwood floor. Wade pulled the inset handle to closet, wondering if the looters had noticed it at all. To the casual eye, the door blended in with the remainder of the wall. 

The door stuck, swollen with moisture. As Wade pulled it free, something slapped against the peeling white paint, sending the raven hopping back and forth along the sill, cawing its surprise. A moldy leather razor strop swayed on a blackened, wrought iron hook like a cast-off memory. The opening smelled as musty as a rat infested tomb.

Once his eyes adjusted, Wade started in on the floorboards with the crowbar. They were wide, rough-cut pine rather than the narrow oak strips throughout the rest of the house that had darkened and been polished smooth beneath decades of shuffled feet.

He wedged the crowbar in a gap between the boards at the back of the closet and leaned his good shoulder into it. With an unexpected tearing sound the first board sprang up suddenly and sent him sprawling. Out in the bedroom, the raven laughed along with Wade’s curses. A chunk of joist clung to one of the rusty nails.

The closet floor came up quickly. Half the beams beneath were rotted by a century of unseen rain seeping though the wall then running along them to find an exit. Wet rot turned dry perhaps going back generations. Patched over from the outside but never quite repaired, the hallmark of his family.

Wade popped the boards up quickly even with only one good arm. His left hung almost useless, unable to bear any pressure without erupting in shooting pain. The work became a ritual, the squeal of nails pulling from sometimes solid wood a mantra. He re-awoke as if from a dream when a strong, musty scent greeted him from the floor space. Only when he peered deeper did the fading light reveal a rectangular shadow resting in the hollow beneath the floor. 

Worming his right hand beneath it, Wade lifted out a green velvet bag, the hard contours of a flat box concealed inside. Balancing it on his hand, he carried it to the center of the bedroom. The rain had eased. As he wriggled his hand free, gray-green dust rose in a cloud that sent him into a fit of coughing. Closer to daylight, the bag was black and covered in a moldy skin.

The raven cocked its head to peer closer as if intrigued by what might lay inside.

The bag was similar to the one his mother sent him to retrieve from her closet each Thanksgiving so she could polish her grandmother’s silverware before dinner. That was before it, the china and all the other family heirlooms had disappeared in a string of unsolved thefts.

Careful to stir as little more mold as possible, Wade pulled open the drawstrings and inserted his hand to retrieve the box. As it emerged, he saw the lid was warped, a bottom corner swollen and sprung, the brass hinges twisted and green with corruption. He set it softly on top of the bag.

Slowly, gently, he drew the lid back by its handle until, without realizing, it came away completely in his hand. He set it aside. Inside laid curling sheaves of paper, half covered in the remains of the box lining. Peeling away the velvet, he found a warped, black cover. Not money, a book.

He dared not lift it from its decaying cradle. It might still have value. In the dim light from the window, he caught the barest echo of flaking gold embossing. As he turned it open to the first page, the cover snapped free, sending tiny flecks of paper dancing like confetti throughout the room.

Wade’s chin fell against his chest. A deflated sigh sent another gnat-like swarm of paper adrift. There was no family fortune to share with Amelia. Nothing to pay John B. His father had tricked him, perhaps embraced by his own delusion. The hidden treasure was an ancient family Bible, fragile and rotted to where even a whisper of God’s breath might scatter the confused, commingled fragments of His word to the four corners of the wind.

The raven bobbed up and down on the window sill as if delighted by the off-white cloud of Genesis drifting throughout the room. With a roar and a wave, Wade sprang to his feet, sending the screeching, corvine bird flapping for the hickory tree just outside the window. Perched safely on a narrow branch beside a stubborn orange leaf, perhaps the last to survive the rain, the raven cast a baleful eye upon him.

Wade stumbled toward the window to drive the bird from his sight. The raven skittered cautiously up the branch, still mocking him with its caws. The lone leaf broke free and began drifting downward like a candle flame fluttering toward darkness. It never reached the ground.

In the dying light, Wade first heard then saw the gurgling floodwater swirl and eddy up the trunk of the hickory, claiming inches in mere moments. Collapsing across the rain-slick sill, he watched that leaf spiral down until it was extinguished by the rising water. The deluge had spawned a full fledged flood whose wrath would quickly consume the valley, sending the river racing up its banks to where he’d abandoned the old man’s car. The last of his family’s legacy.

The raven squawked a final curse then took to the air in search of dry land. As the black bird faded into darkness, Wade slumped into the standing water pooled beneath the window knowing he would never again see that distant shore.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Peacekeeper

"Peacekeeper" - a reading (on YouTube)


She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. Her die to cast. Her Rubicon.

Her fingers tarried on the lavender silk scarf draped beside the book, her only decision left to make. The scarf was a memento from her final mission abroad, keeping the peace after someone else’s war.

Her mother would say she was throwing away a perfect career. Her father, were he still speaking, would say it was no career at all, just a rest stop on the journey to her ultimate destination of nurturing her children’s destinies.

The book had been her guide, her field manual with all its rules and regulations. The Book of Life in which she had once thought all her scribed deeds would serve as the counterweight that would open the gates of heaven. Now, that life with all its discipline and order was being erased one page at a time as popular protests had transformed into an uprising on their way to revolution.

If she walked out that door and gave the order, hers would become a Book of the Dead, no longer filled with rigid formulae but imprecise incantations that she hoped might shepherd the dying martyrs back into the light. First, she would have to share their darkness and pray she didn’t join them on their odyssey through the underworld, a world lit only by fire with the screams of innocents serving as its siren song. Theirs was a code that demanded eye for eye, limb for limb. A redemption of blood.

Her men awaited her decision. Would they follow a woman into the chaos? Her second said they would if she gave the order. If so, there would be no turning back. If not, there might be nothing to turn back to. The embassies were burning, the airport had been seized, the institutions of a crumbling government served as the strong points to oppress the streets.

Her loyalty lay in question only with the generals, the cabal, the junta. She had sworn an oath to an ideal not an individual. Better to die in the square performing her duty, she told herself, than cowering here obeying lawful yet immoral orders. This is not Srebrenica. We are not the Dutch.

She turned to the window. Deep in the rugged hills she had once called her home, spring had unfurled its multicolored banner. In the city, trees lined the ancient processional, standing at attention in their bright dress uniforms of yellow-green. Golden allamanda trumpeted their victory over the tyranny of winter. With fireworks of pink and red, the azalea celebrated the lifting of the long, dark siege of night. In the public gardens, stately roses stood sentinel by the monuments, festooned with lavender blossoms that had come to symbolize her people’s struggle. Early on, those blooms had adorned the soldiers’ rifles in the square. Now, their petals fell like velvet tears as they daily mourned the martyrs’ graves.

At home, she was the peacekeeper, the one who kept her father and mother, her father and brother from open conflict. Her father remembered only their people’s victories, a golden age when few dared oppose their might. She had witnessed the ambiguities of war. Here, there would be no peacekeepers, no foreign intervention. The only peace would be one forged within.

Slowly, she wound the scarf around her sleeve, knotting the silk as tight as a tourniquet, its color reflecting her decision. Quietly, she closed the door behind her, shutting the book out of sight even as she began issuing her orders.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Redeemer

As the riggers struggle to keep the red and white tent aloft, cold misery drizzles down from a leaden sky. Soon, they will set the riding ring beneath. Locked in my wagon, I am overwhelmed by the scents of the season, mud, leaf mold and decay. An anniversary of sorts.

Ours is a small circus. One score and seven souls spread like tinkers across a dozen brightly painted wagons, plus me in mine. And a menagerie, if I dare call it that. Franque used to bill it as two by two until hard times settled over us. My curse has followed me across the ocean. When America descended into civil war, brother against brother, I had fled eastward, always eastward. Ireland had slipped deeper into poverty. Then with the death of her lover last year, the queen had fallen out of public sight. A dark pall hangs across her land like the long, gray veil of an English autumn.

Now we can barely afford canvas. Most of what we have has been patched and restitched a hundred times. Like the silk that forms my costume. But in the footlights, no one will notice.

The ancient lion and the mangy bear growl nearby and pace their cages. They haven’t been fed in days. Soon, we’ll have to slaughter another mule. Not until we reach Hull or York, Franque says. Besides, hunger makes them roar. The same way it keeps Satan mean while he prowls the grounds at night on massive yet silent paws. I always reserve a few scraps for him so he will linger near my door. My canine companion. My one true guardian, now as before. Besides, I hate seeing any of God’s creatures suffer. Not that Franque feeds us much either. He pays to keep us thin. But I don’t need as much as the other women anyway.

I wonder about the name this place. I feel a pull like it’s the namesake of somewhere I’ve once been. I know we’ve crossed the Humber and are deep in the East Riding of Yorkshire. I ask Franque through the bars of my window when he comes knocking.

“Spalding Moor,” he calls as he walks away, “Land of Nod or something. Just a village where we can earn a few crowns. Now get ready to take your place.”

I paint my face up bright like the wagons, not that anyone will see. Prudence and Patience have taught me a few tricks from their homeland including how to rim my eyes with charcoal. I brush my hair until it gleams like obsidian velvet. Where once it shone like spun gold, it had come back in as black as midnight after the war had burned it away. Then, I thought it a badge of honor. Now, it is my stain.

I don my little brocade vest and a simple, white silk kirtle, both slit in back to accommodate my features. I fumble with the hooks and buttons, my fingers stiff and cold. Finally, I dab a little rose water with the tiny stopper from a cut glass bottle, wrists, ears, and a thin trail descending into my vest. Clutching my brush and slippers, I huddle beneath a heavy cloak and wait.

Soon, one of the Brothers Dunkel comes to escort me, Mattheus tonight. He turns the key and releases me into the circus yard. The rain has eased. With the slap of a hand against his thigh and a quick “here, boy,” he calls Satan to his side. The black mastiff bounds over from beneath the cages where he was sniffing around for fallen meat.

We slip between the shadows of the wagons, Mattheus the athletic Teutonic warrior in his harlequin tights, me a hunchback in my cloak. We both dodge the deepest puddles, trying not to spatter our costumes with mud.

We slide into the back of the sideshow tent through an untied slit in the canvas. The other women are already in their places along the dark path the patrons will wend through. The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Human Oddities and Arielle the Fallen. A private collection of bustiers, corsets and whalebone stays modeled by the exotic freaks of womankind. Close enough to the gawking crowd that an ambitious hand might brush silk, and often did.

Franque has a cruel sense of humor, renaming each of his women according to his unholy wit. Chastity the bearded, Charity the legless, Love the eyeless, Faith the midget, Hope the giantess, Prudence and Patience the Siamese twins. Prudence is trussed up like a proper English lady, Patience partially undone like a Parisian tart. Two torsos, one pair of legs. Two girls, one goal. Franque’s little joke. Even the hyena no longer laughs.

Many of the other women speak no English, or, like Hope, some dialect I can barely understand. I should be drawn to them like sisters but they are weak, exploitable, too much like my lesser brethren in the war. We had sought to rule this place but never envisioned our freedom would look like this.

I have no idea where Franque discovered them, or whether, like me, they had sought him out. From the whispers I’ve heard, I suspect not. But they are fed in a time when many poor, deformed Londoners starve to death.

Like the others, my body is my attraction and my disgrace. In a niche out of reach, I sit on a stool behind a black curtain with two oval floor mirrors stationed to either side. For my protection Franque says, just like the lock on my wagon door. Their position conceals my face, but sidelights shine across my body. Each night, I play the country lady brushing her long, loose hair at a dressing table in her little vest and kirtle, the village voyeurs beyond the window unnoticed. My fair, unblemished skin set off by raven hair.

The antique, rippled glass obscures the view. Franque says that makes the encounter all the more titillating. But my risqué attire is a sideshow to his sideshow. All anyone really wants is to catch a glimpse of my wings. An angel in the footlights.

The patrons tour our tent before the show, never after. With us, Franque throws in his small menagerie. Pharaoh the lion, Goliath the bear, Hared the purportedly laughing hyena, Pilate the Burmese python, Charles and Emma the unruly chimpanzees, and a pair of unnamed ostriches.

The crowd starts through, mostly anonymous men masked in stale sweat, dung-spattered boots and bawdy laughter. A few young women with high giggles behind the rustle of their skirts. No children. Ever. We are not a sight for under-developed eyes, not at half a crown. No circus is. Franque has three riggers stationed throughout the tent in case anyone lets his imagination rule him. Satan sits guard before my curtain, snarling and snapping if anyone strays too close. A little fun with the other girls is fine. No one takes so much as a step toward me.

Night after night, I brush and stretch, touch up my makeup, twirl my hair, apply more rose water, trace the outlines of my vest, all just as I’ve been taught. None of this is instinctive. I have never gotten used to my gender since the day I’d been cast into it. This is my lot in life now, waiting to be chosen, waiting to fulfill another’s dream. A lady in waiting. They also serve the penance of the damned.

Midway through the night’s procession of prying eyes, I freeze mid-brushstroke as I sense a gaze upon me, cold and naked. This one has a different hunger. I can smell the stain upon him like the gin he drinks like water and wears like cheap cologne. I shrink away, wishing I could hide. I am thankful he cannot see my face, though I’m certain he spots the color rising from my chest. He lingers long enough that Satan sits up and growls then grumbles as he resettles.

Minutes after comes the lull. The main show must have started. In the quieter moments, I hear the rising and falling susurration of the crowd like the faint, wheezy breath of a dying man. The order of the acts is well established by applause. First, the four Brothers Dunkel, imported directly from the Rhineland, tumbling and juggling in their parti-colored tights. Then Yuri the Cossack, captured in Crimea, cantering his pale horse around the ring, standing or handstanding bareback, then slipping under and around, all while brandishing his wicked saber. Rafael the Spanish blade swallows a flaming sword of the finest Toledo steel then nips the tassels from Temperance’s already scanty costume with his toothy little knives. Franque, armed in his bright red waistcoat and coal black top hat with pistol and whip, sprinkles his acts between. He tames the lion, baits the bear, wrestles the serpent, guides the chimps dressed in genteel country finery through a proper English tea. Gabe the clown announces each new act with a flourish of his horn, and keeps up a running commentary of ribald jokes and double entendres.

Temperance, when her back or side is not pressed against Rafael’s target board, plies the crowd with shots of cheap gin from a tray slung around her neck. Most of the men are more interested coaxing her naked shoulders within arm’s reach in hopes of caressing her burgundy dress or black crisscrossed tights. She assures me these encounters are tamer than her previous profession. I only shrug. I’ve done my time as both a diva and a whore.

I have never witnessed the performances from inside the big tent. None of the sideshow women have. But I have watched all the men practice daily from the confines of my wagon for more than a year. I have sniffed out all their dirty laundry. The Dunkels are Dutch not Deutsche, and aren’t really brothers. Yuri was born in Chester. The closest Rafael has come to Spain was the month we traveled Kent. Gabe is a Frenchman but that would never sell. I don’t know from what distant land Franque first hailed, or what ill-conceived bargain he had crafted that had brought him me. Only the women and animals are exactly what they seem.

Soon, another Dunkel escort arrives to chaperone me back to my wagon, once again under wraps. This time it’s the twins, Marcus and Lucas. We dodge across the fair grounds, Marcus keeping watch then waving Lucas and I on once the way is clear.  Nearly home and dry, we almost run smack into the path of a charging Goliath as Franque furiously drives him back to his cage.

Before the heavy wooden door seals me in, I hear Franque call out to Marcus, “Generous crowd tonight. Tell her to get ready for an encore.”

A few hours later it’s Johann, the last of the Brothers Dunkel, who retrieves me. He also collects Satan who lies curled beneath my steps. The camp has been quiet for nearly an hour. All the guests have gone, at least for the moment. Soon, in ones and twos, a select few will file back in concealed by night.

The moon peeks out shyly from between the clouds. I shiver. A chill has moved in after the rain. Beneath my cloak I still wear the diaphanous silk shift and my little vest. We quickly traverse the campsite, careful now to skirt the freshly added dung. We slip into the main tent shrouded in darkness.

Soot, sweat and stale gin from the previous performance mingle with scent of wet canvas. By flickering footlights we navigate to the pole in the center of the ring. I can almost make out the small, circular platform like a crow’s nest near the peak of the tent. Clutching the built-in handholds, I begin to climb.

I crouch in the tiny space beneath the pointed cap of canvas. The riding ring looks like a half-buried bone china saucer so far below. I am not afraid. Encores are the one freedom my existence now allows, as close as I come to returning to my true nature from before the war. The riding ring is a tight circle for my performance, but if Yuri can cling to it at a gallop so can I.

Slowly, the tent refills, all men this time. Temperance dodges amongst them with fresh gin. Franque keeps the lights low. Our performers and riggers ring the crowd with stout Irish cudgels. Franque is once again armed with his pistol and a whip as if these patrons are yet more wild animals to be trained. I wait to make my appearance until they all are nearly falling down drunk. Tonight’s crowd is more sullen than most.

The tension builds until scantly suppressed violence ripples around the ring. I sense him near the center of it, his scent much bolder this time. Once again, I shiver beneath my cloak despite the heat from all the bodies and the footlight flames trapped up here.

Gabe blows a brassy flourish on his horn. My cue. I step to the edge of the platform and drop my cloak, which flutters to the ground. Someone uncovers the burning quicklime in the lantern, haloing me in a pool of light. As all eyes in the crowd ascend, Gabe darts across the ring to snatch up my cloak. He will be waiting with it by the back vestibule when I finish.

I stand on my toes at the edge of the platform. A hush falls. I feel their eyes tracing out the edges of my costume and roaming across my skin. My chill turns to excitement.

Slowly, I lean forward like a denuded Norwegian spruce long hammered beneath the axman’s blows until there is nothing left below me but empty air. I plummet like a javelin, or a falcon stooped upon its prey.

My loose hair whips behind me. The silk of my skirt plasters itself against my bare legs. The lantern follows as if its light is tied to me by a cord. An instant before I crash to earth, I spread my wings and soar around the ring. I swoop and dive, bank and glide. For a few brief moments, I am free again. Redeemed.

I know my freedom will be short-lived. The gas to feed the limelight is expensive, the mechanism finicky at best. Always make them walk away hungry, Franque says. Like a succulent meal, it’s best to leave them wanting just a little more.

On my second pass, their eyes are still all locked upon me. Above the reek of mud and gin, I smell envy tinged with lust. Their minds tell them that it’s well disguised wirework, but every one of them wants to believe what he sees. They all harbor secret dreams of flight.

I feel his eyes again as I ascend to make a final pass. The ring is small. The turns are tight. This time, I cannot get escape his gaze. Then, as I circle the central tent pole, everything goes wrong.

The limelight suddenly snuffs out, plunging the tent back into semidarkness. Curses rise above angry voices. As silent as a barn owl on the wing, I glide above the fray. The riggers push back the drunken crowd with the persuasion of Irish oak. Undaunted, the men of the moor surge forward. Satan charges in from the back vestibule, disappearing into the melee, a dog possessed. Deep within, I hear a yelp followed by a long, low whine. Outnumbered, the riggers fall back. Someone kicks a footlight. Fire spills along one side the ring.

I alight on the ground in the rear vestibule. Folding my wings, I pluck up my cloak from where Gabe dropped it. I throw it across my shoulders and hurry out. No escort awaits me. Inside, Franque’s pistol barks above the angry mob in a futile effort to command silence. They do not heed. Like Goliath or Pharaoh spurred by Franque’s whip, I sprint headlong across the camp toward the safety of my cage, heedless of the puddles. Cold mud splashes up my skirt and runs down my legs. By the time I reach the wagon, my cloak is sodden and caked with it.

I fly up the steps, slamming the door behind me once I’m safely inside. I fall back against it, relieved. Then, I see his blade shining in the moonlight. I know he will use it. He has before. I can see the mark upon him now. He is the ruler of his own domain.

“I’ll scream.” I lie. He’s been chosen and there is nothing I can do.

He shakes his head. “No one to hear, love. They’ll all be busy quite some time.” He steps closer, the naked steel hanging loose in his hand. He is a nasty looking piece of work, brutish and short. For this, we were cast aside.

“Satan follows everywhere I go. Any minute, he’ll bound through this door.” I fumble with the latch behind my back.

“That mutt won’t be coming round any time soon.” He laughs, close enough that I can smell his breath. Gin and rancid turnips. A red sheen slickens his knife in the moonlight. “How bout you quit playing hard to get and shuck off that cloak? May as well we get to know each other.”

I do as he commands, knowing the pain the knife will bring. I am no longer immune to it. Or worse.

“Now, twirl round. Slowly. I want to see if they are real.”

I shiver as I turn to face the door. His blade is sharp. At first, I miss the sting of it, but when it comes I cry out, no longer a soldier.

He hums approvingly as blood from my second shoulder trickles down my back. “I’ve done a lot of pretties in my time but never quite an angel.”

“You don’t need the knife,” I whisper. “I’ll give you what you want.”

“Willingly?” The stink of his breath caresses my ear even as his knife presses against my back.

“Willingly,” I say. “Tell me your desires. I’ll make your dreams come true.”

“My dreams are evil,” he says. “The priest of St. Michael’s told me so just before he tossed me out. ‘Yours is the temptation of Lucifer,’ he said. ‘You dream of a dance with the Devil, Kayne, not the messengers of God. Our Lord has deemed that no mortal man can fly.’”

A little sigh escapes me. I will live through this encounter. I know it. Small men have small dreams.

“Is that your only dream?” I ask with the bitter taste of hope, “To fly?”

“To fly,” he repeats, his voice suddenly distant like a child’s.

“While?” I ask, my voice quavering, anticipating his answer.

“While,” he confirms, a man again as his callused hand turns me by a shoulder to face him.

Button by button, he liberates my vest with tiny little flicks of his knife. I admire him in a way. He is strong and arrogant, like my scattered band of brothers. He takes what he wants, what he knows should be his by right not bestowed by providential favor. In that, he is truly no one’s servant. But that I am the object of his freewill, I feel a twinge of envy. Then he nicks me just for fun. This time will be hard.

My mind escapes by listening to Pharaoh growl and pace out the corners of his cage. He is nervous and hungry. I wish I could calm him by stroking his tangled mane but I cannot. There was a time I could have lain down in the cage beside him, curled up and gone to sleep unharmed. Those days are long to the west of here and guarded by flaming swords.

My mind returns as we step outside. The camp is eerily quiet. A scent of dead smoke hangs in the moist night air. In the distance, a dog howls, in loneliness or in pain, I cannot tell. I wonder if it’s Satan and whether he keens for me.

Kayne prods me with the knife. I clamber onto him. I try not to think about what comes next, just the purity of flight. I am not afraid. My virtue is no longer intact. I have trouble remembering when it ever was.

For a small man, he is heavy. It’s a miracle we get off the ground. Beat by beat, we climb the night. The air grows colder as we ascend toward the stars but remains clear. On opposite horizons, the lights of Hull and York twinkle like celestial realms wracked by malicious laughter. I tingle with a freedom that the enclosure of the riding ring could never offer.

Then the tip of his knife pricks my shoulders with a series of tiny kisses. His teeth lightly bruise my neck like a biting butterfly. We strive against each other like Roman wrestlers, or enemy soldiers struggling to control a loose bayonet. Soon we are sheened in sweat. Twice, I nearly lose my grip. I reach for him afraid he will escape my grasp. At last, I lock my ankles just to maintain my hold.

He pants like Satan in the dog days of summer, whether from exertion or excitement I do not know. Suddenly, he clings to me like a dying man. I clutch him like one of my wounded brethren in the war. For an instant, we hang in midair, united, one mind, one body, one incandescent soul. In the limelight of the moon, my ancient sins are briefly washed away.

And then my redemption betrays me just as I did it so long ago for a whispered promise of liberty and false equality. My reality comes crashing down in wave after wave of unwanted pleasure as our spiritual fraternity burns itself away.

Finished, he slumps within my arms. I am tempted to release him, to let gravity guide him back to earth. Up here, I can almost smell the Channel. The estuary would not be far. Just another lost soul cast up by the sea.

But I don’t. My penance would be a dozen more just like him only spiteful. And I could never condemn another creature to that slow, tumbling, terrifying fate. That dream still drenches me at night.

Instead, I return him to the desolation of the moor. My approach scatters a congregation of rock doves from their nightly roosts. Their shadows ascend toward heaven like crows to a fresh-laid battlefield. On the ground, an ancient church stares down at me, empty eyed and ruinous, like the decisions I once made.

Gently, I lay him in the shelter of its shadow like a castoff orphan, his knife clutched across his chest like the treasure of a pagan king. For a moment, I watch him sleep, exhausted yet so peaceful, a child in the cradle of its grave. I pity these poor creatures and their solitary lives. I wonder what dreams might come to him this night, what tales he will tell of them tomorrow.

Clutching the tatters of my garments, I take back to the air seeking salt to bathe my wounds. As the cold sea numbs my pain and washes his scent away, I remind myself that this is the price for our rebellion. My eternal act of contrition for participating in the war.

Across the long, dark water, I am driven eastward, always eastward. The Black Forest, the Carpathians, perhaps the frozen city of St. Peter. By moonlight, I circle, searching the countryside for another striped tent, another torchlit sanctuary where I can begin again. Another earthly prison where I’ll once again be damned to serve as the redeemer of someone else’s dreams.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III