The Bestest of Friends Lori and Patty’d sit together at the same table in the main dining room. Lori was the talker. When Patty agreed she would knuckle-rap the table twice then do a quick nod at Lori. When it came to a round-table discussion Patty’d put in her opinion with the economy of Frankenstein’s monster, “Friend good. Fire bad.”
They lived in Sleepy Oaks Nursing home. Lori’d been there seven years. She never married, and her two sisters were not interested in having her live with them. One sister had two grown boys—one in college and the other in high school. Neither she nor the boys ever visited Lori. The other sister saw Lori on rare occasions. So Lori was lonely and had to make friends at Sleepy Oaks, something she was not good at given her propensity for getting into fights. But when it came to Patty, Lori liked to describe their relationship, as “the bestest of friends.” Now Patty, who had been there for about five years, was a mystery. She’d been married once, it was believed her husband had died. No one knew for sure. People gravitated to her, as she was a listener. She’d look you directly in the face and seemed genuinely interested in anything you said. And of course, if she agreed you could count on a double knuckle-rap punctuated by a quick nod of approval. Lori’d complain to her daily about someone or other having insulted her. More than once they called her “big head.” She was vulnerable to this because, as chance would have it, she really did have a big head. The insults seemed to fly at her from residents, nursing aides, even visitors to the home. Management threatened to transfer her to the psych section if she didn’t behave. It was always something with her. Occasionally, Patty would roll back her wheelchair while Lori was in mid-sentence and swivel an about face and suddenly leave without explanation. One day a new resident came to their table. Lester, a gregarious black man. Lori took an immediate dislike to him. He seemed to have sucked up all the attention at the table whenever he was around. Lori and Lester got into bitter arguments almost daily. Lester’d swear at Lori, too. The staff would listen to Lori’s complaints and then lectured Lester on being civil. They’d do no more than that, as they knew Lori well and figured she had provoked these fights. Lori learned to lick her wounds by stringing plastic beads into bracelets and necklaces. This was her one true talent and she made money at it, selling to residents, staff and visitors to the nursing home. Then, Lester transferred to a new home and things quieted down at the table. Though Lori suspected Lester might have poisoned the girls’ minds against her. Everyone went back to their favorite vice. Bingo was the most popular activity of all among the residents. Lori and Patty played regularly. On this particular afternoon, Lori had already won a regular Bingo game, which paid $.25 for a Bingo. Then several games later they were playing “full card” Bingo, and Patty won. Lori leaned toward Patty and said, “Ooh, you just won a dollar.” Patty leveled her stare at Lori, no knuckle-rap no nod, and said, “Fuck you, Lori.” She was certain Lori was worming in one of her custom-made put-downs. Lori immediately swiveled on her wheels and scooted back to her arts and crafts table, without grabbing her Bingo cards. Two warm tears rolled down her reddened cheeks, her “bestest friend” no more, at least not for the time being, while her colored beads awaited.
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Birthday gift |
Evan Santo is an aspiring novelist, focused primarily on YA LGBT, Romance, and Mystery genres. He is earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, at Full Sail University, where he also works as a peer tutor. In his free time, Evan enjoys creating YouTube videos for Animal Jam, a WildWorks children's game and writing articles for the Animal Jam Archives, a website associated with the game. He can be contacted at EvanSantoBusiness@gmail.com or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/EvanSanto/ |
Escape
“Hello, is anyone in here?” Nadia asked.
“Obviously not,” Leon said.
“Then who opened the door?” Nadia asked. The two of them explored the hotel room for a moment. They picked up several pieces of broken parts to chairs and tables. Leon tugged on his shirt and Nadia fanned herself with her hand, beads of sweat dripping down her forehead.
“This place scares me,” Nadia said.
“I love it,” Leon said.
“We’re doomed.” She wiggled the doorknob, but it fell off the hinge.
“Relax, we will get out of here,” Leon said. Nadia sat still in the corner. Her face turned a cherry red, and her vision clouded. Buckets of sweat poured down her face, and her right leg shook like Jell-O.
“What’s wrong?” Leon asked.
“It is too hot in here,” Nadia said.
“So, take off the long skirt and your neck scarf.”
“Are you crazy? This is a part of my religion.”
“Who believes in religion anymore…” Leon muttered.
“I do. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to pray. Or is that too religious for you?”
“Do what you want. I am going to keep looking around.”
Nadia sat down with her left foot on the ground and her right foot upwards. She turned toward Mecca and prayed. With the fasting from Ramadan, and the heaviness of her clothing it made focusing a near impossible challenge. She tried to pray about a nice cool breeze to calm her body down, but her mind was constantly bopping in a circle.
“Get out of my room,” an evil baby voice said. Leon jumped and frantically paced around the room. Nadia recaptured her balance and crept behind Leon’s shoulder.
“Who are you?” Leon asked.
“This was my room first,” the voice replied. The whole room shook, and the wall caved in.
“What is happening?” Nadia screamed in fear.
“You must play by my rules if you want to escape,” the sinister child said.
“I don’t want to play. Just let me out,” Leon cried.
“Fine, then I will just watch you get crushed by the walls.”
“W-wait,” Nadia said.
“Interested in playing?” the voice asked. Nadia tightened her hijab and Leon gently tied his dreadlocks in a ponytail.
“Let’s do this.”
“Very well,” the voice said. Time stopped for a moment and everything remained still. Silence fell upon the room.
Leon glanced at Nadia’s wispy eyelashes, “You ready?”
“Always.”
“To escape the room, you must find five items I have hidden. The only form of help you get is each other. You must show me all five items to escape.”
“Okay, how long do I have to find the objects?” Leon asked.
“Just five minutes, one minute per item,” the voice said.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“You must bring back: two buttons, one pearl bead, a shard of glass, and a scarf. Your time starts now.”
They ran all around the hotel room, checking things off his list one by one. Leon managed to get three items done in two minutes. A slight grin emerged on his face,
Nadia ripped a shiny white pearl off her Abaya. “We got everything.”
In the final minutes, Leon remembered the last thing on the list: a scarf. Leon paused and starred directly at Nadia. The clock counted down faster and faster. Ten— nine— eight. In a mode of panic, he tried to undo Nadia’s hijab.
“Get off of me!”
“We must present the items, we have to.”
“What part of sacred do you not understand?”
“Give me the scarf!”
“I am wearing the scarf. It counts.” Leon ripped off Nadia’s scarf and presented it to the voice. Nadia’s face turned blank. Her closest childhood friend betrayed her trust, she could never forgive him. Tears emerged from her face. Leon presented the items to the voice.
“Very nice job, Leon,” the voice said.
“Are we free to go?” Leon asked.
“Yes, you are. Here is the key. However, let this be a lesson for you Leon. I only said you have to find the items. You did not need to present them. Remember to always listen to instructions carefully.” Leon froze. Nadia glared him down and snatched the key from his hand. She locked the door and left Leon in the room alone.
“Good luck getting out now,” Nadia said, as she dropped the key down the spiral staircase.
What He Knows Now
He sat up in his bed like a vampire rising from his coffin. The alarm continued to yell at him from across his room. He tried to turn the alarm off with a stare, but that didn't work for obvious reasons. Daniel forced himself to get up, lumber across the room, and smack the digital clock.
Daniel's muscles eased as he took in the silence. That's when he felt it. Something was different, but Daniel wasn't sure what it was. He didn't know it yet, but his 40-year-old self had sent his wisdom to Daniel from the future.
Daniel examined the stuff in his room. His electric guitar leaned against the wall without a stand. That made him nervous, which it never did before. The guitar could tip over and break the arm.
His memories were no different than they were before. Daniel didn't recall the experiences of his future self. But he'd gained the intuitions from what he learned in the future. He was still 17-year-old Daniel. But the way Daniel saw everything had changed. He knew now, what his future-self wished he knew then.
Piles of clothes littered the floor. Daniel found himself wondering what his room smelled like. He picked up some jeans and sniffed the crotch. Nothing, but he knew people could get used to their own stink, which he didn't know yesterday.
A knot tightened in his stomach. Daniel wondered if something was wrong with him but decided to blame waking up too early. He checked his wall calendar. The days were blank except for his work schedule and a note for today. It read Pick up Christa.
That was strange. Daniel felt he should be doing more than working. Before he contented himself watching movies and playing video games in his free time. Now he wanted to fill his schedule with trips, hangouts and exploring.
23 years in the future his calendar would look like this.
A screaming buzz filled the room again as the alarm clock snooze expired. Daniel flicked the FM button hard. The clock almost fell off his dresser. Smells Like Teen Spirit shrieked from the tiny speaker. Daniel winced and turned it off.
"Huh?" he muttered.
He loved Nirvana, but not anymore. Now he thought the radio overplayed them. Inside he knew there was better music out there. Record labels picked what they would play on the radio. It had nothing to do with what was good music. It was about money.
"What is wrong with me?" he asked the clothes scattered around the floor.
Daniel began to clean his room, worried it may smell. As he stuffed his laundry basket with jeans and t-shirts, he caught himself his bedroom mirror.
"What is this?" he asked himself as he ground the oily hair between his fingers. His long blonde hair looked out of place to him.
It looked like a rat's nest. The day before he saw it as a lion's mane. All cool guys in movies had long hair, but his new eyes saw the truth. Now the thought of cutting it crossed his mind.
His friends' reactions ran through his mind. What would they say if he cut his hair? What would Christa say?
"Christa," he said to himself. In the mirror. "Tonight. She wanted...wants to talk."
The words weighted with unknown importance. Daniel's mind existed in two moments. One that understood and one of confusion.
Daniel glanced down at his bed. The sheets were inviting and warm. But unlike yesterday, he'd hate himself if he went back to bed.
The smell of bacon and coffee wafted into his room. Daniel's stomach growled like he hadn't eaten in years.
He grabbed a pair of jeans from the drawer. They had two giant holes in the knees. He checked the rest of his jeans and discovered most of them had holes in them. He sighed and picked a pair with only one hole.
He threw on an old t-shirt and tied a flannel around his waist. He pulled on his Docs on and was ready for the day.
Daniel stared at his brown eyes in his reflection.
"What's different?" he asked his reflection.
"Something's changed, but I can't figure out what," his reflection answered.
"You need to figure out what's going on."
***
As he reached the bottom step, he saw his Mom cooking over a hot stove. He walked over to the coffee pot and poured a cup.
"Hey, handsome," his Mom greeted. "You're up early for a Thursday. Your Dad already left for work. You want breakfast?"
Daniel leaned against the counter, drinking his coffee.
"Sure," he said. "Thanks, Mom."
She gave him a second glance. Her face knitted in consideration.
"No cream and sugar, Danny?"
"Not anymore," he said between sips. "And I think I prefer Daniel now."
Her mother's intuition told her something was wrong. She watched Daniel glide across the room as she tossed two eggs into the pan. He held himself different. Before Daniel sulked and would be quiet. Now he walked tall with intense silence.
"What's on your mind?" she asked.
Daniel thought for a long moment. He couldn't say what was on his mind. So, he answered with a joke.
"All this hair," he smiled as he flicked his locks around.
She did a double-take as she slid the eggs onto a plate.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I don't know. Maybe it's time for a change."
She walked over to him and placed his breakfast in front of him. Daniel began to eat, but he didn't gobble it down like usual. He ate slower and looked out the window while he chewed.
"Did you have a bad dream?" Daniel's Mom guessed this wasn't true, but it was all she could think to ask.
Daniel looked at her and smirked.
"No, Mom. Just trying to figure out some stuff."
He went back to his breakfast and the window while she cleaned up. It felt extra quiet like two strangers were in the room for the first time with nothing to say to each other.
"How's Christa?"
"Who?" Daniel responded while his thoughts drifted. He considered the greys in the world. How things weren't black and white. Right or wrong. He questioned the existence of God, but then decided he had to exist. Daniel was processing all the things he would learn in the next 23 years over coffee and eggs.
He had forgotten that he was in love and that terrified his mother.
"Christa. How has she been, Daniel?" she asked. Daniel heard her worry and snapped out of his deep reflection.
"She's fine. We're meeting to talk about some stuff."
"Some stuff?" Her mother's intuition sensed something was wrong. "Did she specify what?"
Daniel shook his head as he drank the rest of his coffee.
"Daniel, you're acting too casual. She might have something serious to tell you. You love this girl."
Daniel used to be head over heels for Christa. She was sure he'd ask Christa to marry him at some point. She figured when he finished college. But Daniel acted like he didn't care.
"I love her?" Daniel didn't mean for it to come out as a question, but there were so many people out there he hadn't met yet. His Mom sat agape. "I just had a weird morning, Mom. Something changed in—"
The phone rang, cutting off his thought. Daniels Mom picked up the phone.
"Hello," his Mom answered. "Hello, Mark. He's right here."
She handed the phone to him.
"It's Mark."
His mother went back to cleaning as her son talked to his friend. Something was different about Daniel, and it concerned her.
"Okay," she heard her son say. "I'll drive you to the mall. But I need to borrow $15."
What is the $15 for? she wondered, but Daniel was out the door before she could ask.
***
The autumn wind blew through the car's open windows. Both boys' long hair flapped around their faces. Daniel sucked in the crisp air.
"I love this time of year," he commented to Mark.
Mark didn't pay attention. He pressed random buttons on his broken pager like a caveman.
"I can't believe I dropped this in the toilet," Mark bemused.
"You shouldn't have tried turning it on right away. If you tossed it in a bag with some dry rice, you might have salvaged it."
"How do you know that?"
Daniel took a moment to check his mirror as he changed lanes. This stood out to Mark because Daniel was a terrible driver. Once Mark watched Daniel almost drive head-on into a one-way street. But today Daniel's driving was smooth like he'd been doing it all his life.
"I'm not sure how I know," Daniel stated. Mark noted the concern in his friend's voice, but being 17-years-old didn't have the sense to inquire.
The two friends didn't speak for a while. They rolled past trees with orange-turning leaves. Zeppelin's Kashmir came on the radio, and Daniel turned it up.
"I thought you hated Led Zeppelin?" Mark questioned.
"I guess, not anymore," Daniel shrugged.
"You're acting weird, dude."
"That's probably true."
When they got to the mall, Daniel navigated between cement islands like a ship looking for a port. He parked and shut the engine off. The sun caused Daniel to squint his eyes, so he lowered the visor.
Both boys spotted a cigarette smoking kid leaning against the wall by the mall entrance. He wore an old army jacket that drooped on his skinny body.
"I know him," Daniel spoke as he looked at the specter of his childhood. He didn't realize that feeling came from his 40-year-self.
"Who? That guy?" Mark asked as he got out of the car.
"That kid in the jacket stole a girl from me."
"Kid?" Mark glanced up. Mark watched as the guy stomp out his cigarette and walk inside. The guy was the same age as them.
"And he mocks me for a being a Christian."
"What?" Mark grumbled. "Why don't you beat the shit out of him?"
Mark never avoided an opportunity to fight. He was big and liked to tussle. This attitude led him to fight no one because most people don't want to fight someone that likes to fight.
"I think I did," Daniel shook his head. "No. That's not right. I do beat him up. But should I?"
"You're talking all crazy," Mark told him. "I like it. Let's go get him."
Daniel's new wisdom collided with the feelings of his youth. They fought for balance inside of him.
The cigarette smoking kid was Parker. He had been a plague on Daniel for the past several years.
"Hey, there's the Christian boy," Parker would yell at him in the halls of the school. Or something like, "I'm a devil!"
These weren't even insults, but it was demeaning. But Daniel remained a "good Christian" and let it go. Then Parker lied to Daniel's high school crush to make sure she'd never date him. It devastated Daniel.
Daniel enrolled in a private school a few months later.
"He ruined my life," Daniel said to Mark.
"Cool. More reasons to go have a talk with the jackass."
"I was angry for a long time. Then I met Christa."
"Wait, that kid," Mark pointed at the mall. "He's the reason you switched schools. Let's kill him."
"No. I'll take care of it."
Daniel spoke with clarity that made Mark let the issue go.
***
Inside the mall, the two friends went their separate ways. Mark went to the pager kiosk to fix his broken toy while Daniel went to cut his hair. Mark lent Daniel the money for the haircut but never asked what it was for.
The actual haircut was uneventful. Daniel walked in and asked a random girl he'd never met to cut his rat's nest off. He didn't bother with any frills. She cut it short with a little bit of styling.
Daniel ran his fingers through his hair as he left the hair salon. He strolled past store after store and then stopped in front of a mirror. The short hair made him look taller. Two small holes in his white t-shirt and ripped jeans stood out to him. He shifted the flannel around his waist to try and cover them up.
"Geez," he said to his reflection. "Do I own anything without holes?
His reflection didn't get a chance to answer. Parker's reflection appeared in the mirror as he snuck up behind Daniel. At first, Daniel braced himself, thinking Parker was going to push him into the mirror. Parker had the habit of shoving him at lockers in the school halls.
Instead, Parker got close behind him and with a guttural voice declared, "I am the demon god!"
If Daniel didn't have the wisdom of his 40-year-old self, he would have turned around and punched Parker. The bully would have backed off in surprise, then fight back, giving Daniel a bloody nose. It would end with Daniel grabbing Parker and kneeing him the face.
Daniel didn't do that, though. His intuition knew the trouble he'd get into for fighting at the mall. Daniel didn't turn around or respond. He walked away like Parker was invisible.
"Your haircut looks dumb," Parker taunted as he followed. "Did you lose your strength like Samson?"
That made Daniel face his advisory. Parker smirked like he had made the final move in a chess game.
"I'm surprised you know who Samson is, Parker. Do you study the Bible just to make fun of me?"
"I only read the Satanic Bible," Parker mocked.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I just hate your fucking face." Anger rippled through Parker's voice. At this point, Daniel racked his mind for anything he did to create such hate. He concluded that it wasn't his fault, but something another Christian did to him.
Daniel 40-year-old brain had his own problems with some Christians, yet he was a Christian too. It was a conundrum.
"You know Samson didn't lose his strength because of his hair," Daniel explained. "It was because he didn't listen."
"What the fuck do I care about that?"
"Because I'm going to ask you to listen and leave other Christians and me alone."
"Make me."
"I will if I have to," Daniel said. His voice was so calm it took Parker off-guard. It made the threat seem real, and it was. "I think I did before. So, I know I can do it again."
"What are you talking about?" Parker took a step back in caution.
"I'm not sure what your issues are, but they're your issues," Daniel continued. "I don't need you taking out your crap on me. And no one else does either."
People eyed the two teenagers. Passersby felt the tension between the two of them.
"I don't have issues," Parker claimed. "You have issues." Parker wasn't yelling, but he became louder. Daniel spotted a security guard watching them from behind a plant. Parker didn't take notice of the unwanted attention they were receiving.
Daniel saw Parker's clenched fist. Daniel had unnerved him.
"This conversation is over." Daniel put his hands up in surrender, hoping to end the conflict.
"This conversation is over," Parker imitated. Daniel found this immature, but it still irked him. Parker could read that and continued to pry. "I'm not sure what your issues are. I don't need your crap. I know I can do it again."
Hearing his own words spat back at him made Daniel cringe. Even with the intuition of his older self, he found Parker's attack affective. Turns out a bully's words hurt even when someone knew they meant nothing.
Daniel fought back wiping Parker's smug expression off his face with his fist. The two rivals stared each other down like two gunslingers. Neither flinched as they waited for the other to make a move. Then Daniel put on a smug grin of his own.
"What are you smiling about?" Parker scoffed.
"I think you have more issues to deal with."
Parker didn't get a chance to decrypt Daniel's words. Mark's giant paw grabbed the back of Parker's army jacket. The skinny bully panicked when he realized what was going on. He managed to slip out of his jack like an eel. Parker tripped and fell to the marble tile floor.
Mark towered over Parker, holding the army jacket in his hand. Mark smiled like a crocodile at the cowering bully. Parker scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the mall.
Mark moved to go after him, but Daniel laid a hand on his chest to stop him.
"Leave him," Daniel advised. "He's not worth it."
Daniel eyed the security guard, watching them through the plant.
Mark furrowed his brow at his friend.
"What did you do to your hair?" He asked.
"What did you think the fifteen bucks was for?"
"Was this your Mom's idea?" Mark questioned.
"If it were, she would have given me the money. No, this was my decision."
"You're like a completely different person today."
"Yeah, I'm piecing that together."
"Whatever," Mark shrugged. "As long as it was your choice."
Mark referred to Daniel's short hair, but Daniel contemplated every choice he'd made that day.
***
Christa sat on the front pew staring at the stain glass window of the sanctuary. She had finished her play practice, and everyone else had left. Christa waited for her boyfriend to pick her up. Thoughts ran through her head. Her stomach clenched every time she tried to guess how he would react.
She told herself this would be fine. No matter Danny's reaction. Christa sat mind racing for over an hour. She found it odd that Danny would be late. He'd never been late before.
Did he know something was wrong?
Her face flushed at the thought. The door to the sanctuary creaked, causing her to jump. Christa turned to see Danny marching into the sanctuary.
Her eyes transfixed on him. Danny had cut his hair.
"Sorry I'm late," he said. Danny's gait had changed. His slouch disappeared, and he walked with purpose. "I ended up having to explain a situation at the mall. It's been an afternoon."
Danny sat beside her on the pew. He let out a sigh as he relaxed. The large cross in the window cast a shadow on his face.
"I've never noticed the smell of this place before. It's like a combination of must and old lacquer," Danny commented.
Christa tried to speak but choked on her own words.
"Are you okay?" he said to her. "You look pale."
"Yo-you cut your hair, Danny?" she stuttered.
"Yeah, I wasn't feeling it anymore. And it's Daniel now."
Christa sat paralyzed in shock. One thing she loved was short-haired guys. But Danny refused to cut his. It was the one thing he'd never do for her. Then out of nowhere, he shows up without it.
"Daniel?" She said like it may not be him. Did she address an imposter?
"Yeah," he waited a moment for her to say more, but she didn't. "Oh, you wanted to talk to me about something?"
Christa didn't want to tell him now. This wasn't Danny. She was deep in uncharted waters.
"So, what is it? You really don't look good," he continued.
Despite every nerve in her body feeling on fire, she managed to start.
"Um, I went over Tommy Rogers house while you were at work last Saturday."
Christa braced herself for an emotional outburst.
Would he yell? Cry? Walkout?
He didn't do any of that. He looked right at Christa, waiting for her to finish.
"You remember Tommy, right?"
"Of course. Tommy's your old crush." He remained calm, which relieved her and scared her too.
"Well, we went swimming in his pool," she went on.
Still, Daniel remained stoic.
"And one thing led to another, and we kissed."
"Oh, crap." He said it like he forgot an errand to run.
"We made out," she squeaked.
"Why am I not surprised?" Daniel glanced at the cross. It was a question he actually wanted the answer to. "I think I knew this was going to happen."
"What do you mean?" Christa's head spun. "How would you know?"
Daniel got up and walked onto the church stage. He stood right under the cross, staring up at it.
"I know now, what I'll know one day," he told the cross. "That's got to be it."
Christa looked around, hoping someone else would show up. Her boyfriend had lost it, that seemed for sure. Yet, at the same time, she found the new him fascinating.
"I think we lost the plot, Christa," he turned and said to her from the stage.
"What do you mean?"
"You know how many people at this church wanted me to cut my hair. Or stop listening to secular music." Daniel air quoted that last bit as he began to come off the stage. "Like the things we do get us into heaven."
He stopped in front of her and shook his head.
"That's all bullshit. It doesn't work that way."
Her eyes widen like a 40s cartoon. Christa had never heard him swear.
"I've been such a weird mixture of rebelling and doing as asked," He spoke to an invisible congregation. "I think it's time to have consistency."
Christa saw a knew sureness in him. She couldn't piece together what he was talking about, though.
"Listen, Danny," she began.
"Daniel," he corrected.
"Right, well, I'm sorry for what happened. I'm not sure why you're acting this way, but I think you're taking it well."
He sat down next to her and leaned forward.
"The first time I didn't react well. I was blind-sided. It crushed me and left me broken for years. But after a lot of healing, I got better."
"First time?"
"The details aren't there, but I know that's what happened."
Christa imagined Daniel crying over her betrayal. That's what she expected. But this reaction she could have never predicted.
"I thought you were the one. I was going to marry you," Daniel laughed. "Kids marrying kids."
Daniel stood back up and extended his hand. Christa took it, and he pulled her up.
"But none of it will happen now."
"What?"
"Before we tried to make it work. And you cheated again. But you're not getting that chance," he stated.
Christa's eyes welled.
"Come on," he let go of her hand. "Let's get out of here."
"That's it?" She choked back tears.
"Yeah. What did you expect?"
Christa cried.
Daniel walked away from her. He passed each pew, one by one, until he reached the double doors leading out. He paused when he realized she wasn't behind him. Christa stood near the stage, below the cross, with her arms folded around her.
"I'd love it if we had made it." Daniel's voice echoed through the empty sanctuary.
"Who are you?" She asked. Daniel only saw her silhouette from the light shining through the stained glass.
"I'm not sure. I guess that's something I'll be figuring out."
Those were his final words before walking out of the church.
***
Daniel would go on to use his new wisdom to tell a different story with his life. He would still make mistakes, have regrets, and cry himself to sleep on lonely nights. But he wouldn't have to relearn the lessons that he'd learned at 40.
Then when he becomes 40 again, he'll do the same thing. Daniel will gain the ability to send his learned intuition and wisdom to his younger self.
He'll wake up on a Thursday with twice the amount intuition. He'll talk with his Mom, encounter Parker, cut his hair, and break up with Christa. Then he'll go on to become 40 again and send his wisdom back.
This would happen over and over.
It'll be an endless cycle of trying to change the past, only to want to change it again.
In the end, Daniel never has an end. He's a loop of second guesses and fresh starts. And he never sees a day past 40.
After obtaining a PhD in anthropology, Charline Poirier embarked on a career in technology design that brought her in contact with beguiling people across the world. It also displaced her home many times. Nine cities, four countries, until she settled in London, UK – for good. For now. Through that turbulence, fiction writing has been her anchor and passion. Her stories appeared in CommuterLit, Freedom Fiction, and now, in Scarlet Leaf Review. Her main occupation at the moment is editing her first novel, Majic’s Plan, and writing short and flash fiction. |
MAGAZINE WISDOM
Kim started the next morning with the first step: Draw your curtains wide and look forward to the day.
Next, from the list of inspirational quotes, she picked, Don’t look back, you’re not going that way, grabbed a screenshot and saved it as her phone’s wallpaper.
A copious protein-rich breakfast followed by a large glass of water and it was time to write down the daily goal. The author recommended to go big but concrete, and to follow the number one rule: Do what makes you happy.
Going to the farmers’ market with Justin. Once home, building enormous sandwiches. Listening to Justin on the piano play a song he’d just composed. Arguing over the meaning of a poem or irreverently commenting on a painting in front of the gallery owner, with Justin. Making love to Justin and laughing at his jokes. When they lived together, waking up each morning.
Everything had spiraled downward into a very dark place, her perfect life swept away in a maelstrom, the minute Julie Bold showed up at Justin’s door for a policy. Nothing she could do but be ripped apart.
She had to admit though, despite the pain and the treasons, she had never been happier than with Justin. Could she find a man like him again? Never. One of the Pins read defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.
Her goal had to be: “Get Justin back.”
In the bathroom, she splashed her face with cold water to stimulate her collagen and massaged her cheeks. She reached for makeup shelved in the back of her cabinet months ago. Think positively, the article had said, and visualize success. She brushed her teeth.
She arrived at work early. A smell of processed meats and mayonnaise hung in the empty office, and the air conditioner rattled. As she walked along, she glimpsed coffee rings and sauces smeared on documents stacked in messy piles on colleagues’ desks. Once in her cubicle, she scribbled motivational thoughts on post-its and attached them to the thin frame of her computer.
The morning seemed interminable – another bulky and unwieldy program to clean up, and the constant drone of chatter. She glanced at the post-its between hitting keys and peering at the clock.
Coffee break finally came. Clearly Justin was not going to make the first move. He was too proud. On the other hand, if she went to him, he would rebuff her, snigger, close the door in her face. Each small step you take reveals a new horizon. She braced herself and headed for Justin’s office, a floor below. When the elevator doors opened, her hand went for the >||< button. A little voice at the back of her mind whispered: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. She stepped out.
His office was three doors from the elevator bank. His door was open. She hesitated but colleagues pouring out into the hallway from a conference room pressured her to move ahead. Justin was sitting at his desk facing the door. When he looked up his hair fell onto his face, and she missed a breath. His eyes, pale blue behind the black silky curtain, the top buttons of his shirt undone showing a slice of hairy chest, and his tie dangling on the side of the collar of his blue striped shirt, a five o’clock shadow – he could have been on the cover of GQ. He tucked the unruly strand behind the ear with the diamond stud that flashed.
“Kim.” His face broke into a large smile and he rose. He peeked at his computer. “Happy birthday!” He walked over to her. “Can I kiss you?”
The blood drained from her cheeks. Had he been waiting all this time for her to mend their break up and offer forgiveness? The warmth of his lips on her cheek spread through the side of her neck and down through her body. He hummed the happy-birthday tune in her ear. She swayed.
Like magic, he said, “I’m so glad you dropped by. I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t dare, well, after … it … all. Let me take you out to lunch for a bit of a celebration. Thirty, right? Gold Spoon?”
She blinked twice. Her cheeks burned. She cleared her throat. Set your sails when the wind blows. She nodded.
Justin laughed. “One? See you there.” He returned to his desk.
She headed back to the staircase, stunned and elated. There was wisdom after all in the motivational quotes. Who would have thought they really worked? All she needed to do was reach out and it would be hers again. Shannon was going to have a fit when she told her. She’d always said Justin was a callous, self-serving SOB. He could be like that, sure. But underneath, he was pure lamb, even if a bit anarchic with his silly ideas about deserving superiority and all that jazz. How things had blasted out between them was no indication of his nature. As the sayings go, all is fair in love and war, but, at the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.
At one, she hustled to the restaurant. From the door, despite the crowd, her eyes locked on him as if there was no one else. He had reserved the table next to the window where, years ago, he had asked if he could move in with her. The sun shone and he squinted. Her stomach knotted up and her jaw slackened. How was she going to be able to eat anything?
The waiter pulled the chair out for her. In her vlog about relationships, Dr Courtney affirmed that a woman should keep an open mind, and if her man makes a move to come back, she should shut up and melt right into him. Kim took the menu and feigned reading it. She needed a minute to adjust. Her hands shook. At the top edge of the menu Justin brushed his hair with his fingers, stared. She looked up. He grinned and dimples appeared in the prickly roughness of his cheeks.
Her insides were in turmoil. The deep breaths she inhaled were expelled as soon as they touched her lungs. She dipped her lip into the wine.
His voice was rich and hypnotic. Soon, they fell into familiar topics and she settled down. He complained about his job and colleagues. She laughed at his jokes and it all felt wonderful. The best birthday, ever.
“Other than work, how’s life?”
He sucked his upper lip over his front teeth. “I’m in a bit of a pickle to tell you the truth,” he laughed. “The craziness of it all is staggering.”
“Tell me.” A skitter in the ripples of his laughter had given away his unease. She put down her fork and laid her hands on each side of her plate, alarmed.
He gazed quietly into her eyes. “I don’t know if I should even tell you.”
“We used to be able to talk about anything. In spite of what happened, we’re still friends. You can tell me.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Come on.”
He scratched the table cloth with his thumbnail as though he was removing a stain, then said, “Yeah, okay.” He reached for her hand on the table, turned the palm face up, and caressed the middle of it. She stretched her fingers out like a dog whose owner is scratching an itch on its back.
“There it is.” He took his hand away. “Guys on the town. We met some girls. We all went back to my place. One of the girls stayed after everyone left.” He shrugged. “I made a move, but she’d changed her mind. Then, it really was stupid of me I admit, I locked the front door and said I wouldn’t let her go before we, well, you know.” His eyes traveled over the diners. “She complied, but I’m afraid she’ll accuse me of something.” He leaned forward. “What do you think? Did I do something really wrong?”
A line of fire shot up from her stomach to her throat. She covered her neck with her hand. Why was he telling her this? What response could she give? A test, maybe, to see if she had moved on from being petty and possessive, and could generously stand by him. But she didn’t want to hear it because – didn’t he know – she still loved him. The thought of him being intimate with another woman … But now, he needed her to see him through the fix he’d gotten himself into.
Then her thoughts veered off. It was wrong, period.
It was Justin, though, the man she’d lived with, made love to. He’d given into trying the limits of what he could get away with, like shoplifting or leaving a restaurant without paying. It didn’t mean he was bad at the core, just juvenile, and he certainly was not a pervert. He’d made a mistake, that’s all, and wouldn’t do it again. His safety was the bigger issue, here. And not disappointing him.
The story had eaten away at some of the enchantment of the moment. But then she remembered, have enough courage to trust love one more time.
“Well, I guess … if she came to your place, she must have thought …” she mumbled weakly.
After the meal, they walked back in silence. “By the way, how’s Julie?” she said in a tiny voice.
“Julie? We broke up weeks ago. I certainly made a mistake with her. Geez.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. She thought her legs were about to give out and she wouldn’t be able to make it back to her desk.
For the rest of the afternoon, she pressed a few keys, her eyes on the phone, lost in a dream.
#
“Incredible day,” she wrote that night on the first page of her diary. Tomorrow she would let the sunshine in again, read an inspirational quote, have a protein-rich breakfast and a glass of water, set her goal for the day, and continue reaching toward happiness.
She couldn’t fall asleep though. What had happened to Justin nagged at her. If the woman reported him to the police, the consequences could be disastrous. He would lose everything. Did he really deserve such punishment?
The next morning, her mind was clear. She wrote in her notebook: “Help a friend in need.” She would make Justin understand that he needed to deal with it right away to prevent the woman’s anger from overflowing into a formal complaint. She had an idea. She grabbed her coat and keys.
At break-time, she walked down to Justin’s office, put a cappuccino with two sugars in front of him.
He smiled.
“I’ve been thinking about your predicament,” she announced, dropping into the chair in front of the desk.
“Predicament?”
“The thing you told me, the woman, the other night, and you were afraid she could get you in trouble.”
His head drooped and he winced.
“You need to talk to her, apologize. Say you’re sorry, you didn’t mean it that way. You misunderstood. Make it up to her. You weren’t, like, violent, were you?”
He glared at her in response.
After a moment of silence, he shook his head. “I don’t think it’s going to work, I should have realized she was unstable.” His eyes moved to the window on the adjacent wall and to the street below.
Kim didn’t know, of course, how he was with other women, but with her he was wonderful. How bad could it have been for her? “I can’t stand that you’re going through this. If I can do something …”
“Thanks.” His eyes shifted to the back of the room and narrowed. She turned around. Two men stood at the door. They had on cheap brown suits, wrinkled shirts, no ties, not the kind of clothes their regular clients wore. One in his sixties, very thin, white ponytail; the other much younger, dark rimmed glasses, crew cut, and puckered post-acne skin.
“Justin Crown?” the older man said.
Justin stood, invited them in, and Kim made her exit. On her way out, she overheard the older man introduce himself as a police inspector.
Once at her desk, she took out a pack of gum and chewed to calm her nerves. She pulled off one of the motivational quotes from her computer frame and laid it flat in the clearing of the desk beside the paperwork.
A step back gives you more traction.
So the woman had gone to the police.
But then, she thought, the officers might be there for another reason. Something about one of his clients. Or about even a bigger problem. An issue with security, for example. One evening, after a few martinis, Shannon, who headed the firm security, had shown Kim how data could be accessed. “Insanely easy to get in,” Shannon had said. “When you think security is so critical for us that if clients found out, we’d be out of business. The crazy thing is that I can’t do anything about it. They just won’t listen.” Maybe it had caught up with them and a breach had finally occurred.
Fingers crossed.
#
After she creamed her face that night, she confided to her diary what had happened. She thought about the visit from the police and fretted that Justin could be in real trouble. His number was on her speed dial. She called.
“It’s worse than I thought,” he said. “She’s asked for a formal investigation. Can you believe that stupid woman?”
“Go apologize.”
“I have nothing to apologize for. How was I supposed to know?”
She thought, “You had to threaten her, no?” But she opted to not let logic get in the way. “It might satisfy her and make the problem go away,” she said instead.
“I don’t want to give her that satisfaction. What are you up to now? Want to come over for a glass of wine?”
She took in a quick breath. It was late. Don’t always run to him like a dog, that was Shannon’s wisdom. “I’m in bed.”
A silence.
“Would it help if maybe I talk to her?”
“What do you mean?”
“I can tell her I know you, you’re a decent guy, you made a mistake, and she’ll ruin your brilliant future if she doesn’t stop.”
“She’ll do that alright. Let me think about it. I’m sure you can help. Thank you, darling.” He hung up.
Her thoughts nestled around the word “darling” and she pulled the comforter over her shoulder. She fell asleep in the warmth of the bed with a feeling that everything was going to be alright.
#
The next morning she woke up late. She skipped breakfast, the motivational thought, and the goal of the day, bought a greasy doughnut from a street vendor. She made a detour to Justin’s office.
The door was closed.
She suffered through an interminable staff meeting, then went back to her workspace, called again and waited by the phone.
A couple of hours later, the phone finally rang. Agnes from the front desk said that two men wanted to speak with her. “They’re from the police,” Agnes whispered.
In the reception area, the same men Kim had met in Justin’s office stood near the desk, waiting for her.
The older one shook her hand. “We won’t be very long,” he said with a grandfatherly smile. His eyes were red, like he’d been up all night, or crying. “We need to confirm your whereabouts on April 26.”
“Last Friday? Why are you interested in that?”
The younger officer scratched a scar on his cheek.
“We can’t give you much information,” the older man continued, putting his hands in his pockets, and jingling his coins. “I can tell you we’re looking into a crime. The person we suspect hasn’t been charged yet, and we don’t want to start rumors, so we won’t give you a name. Your whereabouts on the 26th might clear up a few things though.”
She wet her lips. Justin’s future was in her hands. Where was Shannon when she needed her? Justin must have told them he was with her, otherwise they wouldn’t be here asking about her whereabouts. If she told the police the truth, Justin would find himself in more trouble. They would figure if he lied about where he’d been he must be guilty.
She was up against it. She couldn’t fail him. Don’t hesitate to go the extra mile to save your love and happiness.
“I was at work, as usual, all day, and then I spent the evening and night with my ex-boyfriend, Justin Crown. I cooked him his favorite, boeuf bourguignon, and we spent a quiet evening at my apartment, watched a video, Dirty Dancing, went to bed around 10.30. Do you need to know more?” Justin had to have told them exactly that. It had been a running joke between them, a story they had concocted the day he’d got a trespassing citation. They had used it shamelessly whenever he needed to be somewhere else.
“He was with you all night?”
She smiled.
“You’re patching things up?”
Kim beamed. “Yeah.”
Back at her desk, she speed-dialed Justin. No answer. She was scattered, anxious, couldn’t get a thing done and left early, saying she wasn’t feeling well.
She made a detour to Justin’s on her way home. Finding a space across the street, she parked and watched for signs of activity. He wasn’t home. Then a taxi pulled up in front of her. Justin got out. She leapt out of her car.
“Kim,” he said, as she ran to him. “It’ll be okay now.” He kissed the top of her head. “As you can see, I’m here.”
“Will you go to her, apologize, and fix everything? It would be terrible if they found out I lied. I’m terrified ….” She hugged him tight.
“Don’t worry. Come inside.”
Kim found herself in the midst of many of the objects that belonged to them. The dining room table, the garish chandelier, the rug with funny animals she’d bargained at a garage sale and, at the end, paid next to nothing for. They sank into the sofa with the cushions that were too soft. He took her hand, wrapped her fingers around his wrist and brought them to his lips. She melted.
“What happened?” she murmured.
“Her case was weak in the first place and when you alibied me it fell apart. It was my word against hers and I was more believable.” He got up, said, “I’ll just rinse off quickly.”
She moved the coasters on the coffee table to form a triangle, as she’d always done when she cleaned. The thin blinds filtered the evening sun and a soft breeze drifted through the room. The crisis was over and she was physically back in their apartment. Amazing. She wished she hadn’t had to lie to get there though. The officers must have grilled that poor woman mercilessly. She must have been so humiliated. And where were her friends? They should have been there supporting her. They should have told the police that Justin had them over. Justin’s own friends should have told them that too.
“Why didn’t they?” she said under her breath.
She listened to the water spattering in the bathroom. Surely the police had asked and double-checked the whereabouts of the other witnesses. Then how …?
He had slipped on a silk robe. Its vibrant purple made his eyes, his complexion, irresistible. And then he smiled and the dimples appeared.
But when he sat, she raised a hand between them to keep him at bay. She said, “There’s something I don’t get. How many girls were there that night?”
“Four or five, I don’t remember.”
Her heart, a ship made of paper, was sinking. Her voice shook like she was about to cry. “Why would the police take my word over all of theirs?”
“You’re respectable, they’re a bunch of drunks.” He reached for her hair with the tip of his fingers and the stretch loosened the belt of his robe exposing part of his chest.
She brushed his hand away. It made no sense at all. Yet, Justin was there, free. The police wouldn’t take the word of an ex-girlfriend over what, ten other statements? Unless there weren’t ten people with different versions of the facts. Unless … no one had contested his alibi at all. Because … .
“There was no one else in your apartment, was there?” She said. “You lied to me.”
“It’s as I told you.” He pulled his hand back, put his elbows on his knees, looked angrily at his feet. “I haven’t asked you to do anything for me.”
A tremor, heavy disappointment riding on a wave of nausea, passed through her.
“Oh my god, Justin. You raped her! Didn’t you? And I …”
His nostrils flared. “Don’t you dare accuse me.” On a dime, the monster who had so abused her months ago was back. “I thought you were better than the others. But you’re so stupid. I’d hoped you’d changed.” He stood.
All her being screamed, “No, don’t reject me again. You don’t really mean that. I’m sorry. Please, love me.” But it was clear the last scrap of happiness had slipped away. She jolted, rushed out.
She ran down the stairs.
Longing is a fertile soil for miracles. Sure. Justin unaccountably welcoming when she’d shown up at his door, their love instantly revitalized. His need for her like in the old days, beyond her dreams. Her infatuation had primed her to shield him. But in fact he had played her perfectly, knowing she would protect him against another woman. No, there were no miracles.
As she crossed the street, she heard footsteps behind her. Justin was going to try to stop her. This time she would spurn him. Once burned, twice shy. She turned around.
She started. The old inspector was a step away.
“Are you following me?”
He laughed. “Not at all, but it’s good I’ve run into you. I have a question.”
“Come to the office tomorrow if you don’t mind. I’m in a hurry.” She unlocked the car door. She couldn’t deal with this man right now.
“Julie Bold. You know her?”
Still facing the car, she said, “She’s a client, I think.” She yanked the door open and threw her handbag onto the seat. She had to get away, into the silence of the car. Shut that door.
“She’s dead, you know.” She twitched her head around. He was looking up at Justin’s apartment. “Strangled,” he added, his eyes focused pensively on the living room window.
She got in and he closed the door. At the stop sign, she studied him in her rearview mirror. He stood, his head tilted upward, hands in his pockets, legs apart, facing Justin’s building – the posture of a man who was not to be deterred by smoke screens.
Julie, strangled to death.
Justin … unthinkable …
Once in front of her house, she struggled to find the car door handle to let herself out, and failed. A hand had plunged into her chest and was squeezing her insides, juicing out of them the humiliation of having been used like a rag to wipe his bloody fingers. Sobs shook her as if they were trying to expel a foreign body clinging pugnaciously to her rib cage. Her palms were drenched in tears. A philosopher had said, You never step in the same river twice, but she had. Like a fool she had, and she deserved what she’d got.
She cried to exhaustion. Then, a notification on her phone triggered the backlight and the wallpaper surfaced. Don’t look back, you’re not going that way.
Tomorrow, the inspector would challenge her on Justin’s alibi. Saying she loved him and he had misled her was not going to cut it. When asked if she knew Julie personally, she would have to say yes; when asked if she hated her, she would have to say yes; when asked if she wanted her dead to get Justin back, she would have to say yes. If she retracted the alibi she’d given Justin, the inspector would conclude that she had lied to protect him and maybe even had been involved in the planning of her death. Justin had counted on exactly that.
He would get away with murder. And with bamboozling her, too.
Her hands on the steering wheel, she thought of Shannon. Thank god she was coming back tomorrow. Kim needed a friend. Shannon was going to be so angry when she found out the dire situation she’d gotten herself into.
She jolted. The plants in Shannon’s office! She’d forgotten. She shoved the gearshift into reverse and backed into the street.
Twenty minutes later, she put the watering can on Shannon’s desk and sat in her chair. She fingered Shannon’s computer that housed all the security information for the company. Justin’s passwords and permissions would be in there. Kim knew Shannon’s passwords. She couldn’t back off the alibi she’d given Justin, but maybe there were other ways to deal with it. An idea was hatching. She started to type.
Her next stop was Justin’s office. As she expected, his laptop was on the desk.
#
The next day, Shannon was back at work. When Kim passed her office, she gestured for her to come in and close the door.
“Jesus, Kim, you bloody slept with him and I had to find out from the police.” She had a tan but her nose was peeling. Freckles had surfaced on her cheeks. She glowered at Kim. “How could you after all he’s done? I can’t believe it.”
Kim smiled.
“Haven’t you heard that Julie Bold's been murdered and he’s a suspect?”
“He can’t be. He was with me the night she died. That’s when we made up. I told the police.”
Shannon made a face. “You’re beyond the pale. Wake up. It’s no joke. They brought me to the District Attorney’s office the second my plane touched down. Showed me the documents they’d subpoenaed.” She drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk.
“You think I would lie to the police?”
“No.” Shannon cupped her chin in her hands and stared at Kim. After a pause, she said, “Remember how Justin had insisted on getting Bold’s account in the first place?”
“Well, he was smitten.”
“The police found nothing unusual in the docs. But, I wonder … .” She typed and read silently. She pushed herself away from the desk and crossed her arms, staring at the screen. “Nope, everything’s in order.”
“Shannon, you’re wasting your time. Justin’s worked here long enough to know better than to do anything obvious. Let the police do their job.”
“You’re right, he wouldn’t be obvious.” Shannon nibbled on the inside of her cheek. “But he doesn’t know everything we do in this office. Let’s pull out his recent activities,” she said and typed in esoteric commands. She eyed Kim. “He’s been busy.”
Kim dragged her chair closer to the screen to see what Shannon was pointing at. “What do you know, a login late that night.”
“That’s a mistake.” Kim touched the screen. “At 11.52PM, we were in bed.”
“You, Kim, were in bed. Looks like he got up. What could have been so urgent?” She reclined, bit her upper lip. “You remember the problem we had last year with the Roston’s will when we couldn’t find the amendment to the policy? Well, since then, I got smart. I wrote a script to locate such things that may have been misfiled. Let’s check something.” She typed, impatiently hit the backspace, inhaled, clucked her tongue, hit return. Then, a list appeared on her screen. She scrolled down.
“Look at this baby.” She highlighted a line with her cursor. “An amendment to Bold’s policy. Misfiled. The swine hid it. I can’t believe this crap.” She scrolled down further and stopped.
“He wrote himself in as Bold’s beneficiary!”
She licked the tips of her fingers and rubbed them against her thumbs, her hands moved back to the keyboard. “We have a tracking system that no one outside the security team knows about. It has geotags that will tell us the time and location of a document when it was created.” A few strokes more. Lines of technical gibberish. Shannon muttered slowly, “Kim, it was created at your place. On the 26th.”
Kim looked at her incredulously. Her voice rose a notch. “If he made changes to the policy, she must have instructed him to do it.”
“Okay, I’ll grant you that for a minute. Think, Justin knows that any policy change has to happen while the client is alive. The coroner told me that Bold died around 12.30AM. Don’t you see? Justin had to make sure the changes were in before then. So he must have known the time of her death. How in the hell do you figure he knew that?”
She paused to let it sink in. “He must have hired someone to kill her. He’s the prime suspect. With his alibi there’s nothing the police could do. Until now. With this,” – she waved to the screen – “his alibi isn’t worth shit.”
Shannon snorted. “It’s the last nail in his coffin.”
“No! It’s impossible, he wouldn’t do that. You’ve always hated him.”
“Wake up! This is proof: geotags don’t have feelings. You both swore he was at your place. No?”
Kim considered this. Shannon had been pretty drunk when she’d told her about the security backdoor. She didn’t seem to remember she’d shown her. Nor would she bring up the weakness of the system with the police when the survival of the firm depended on its ability to protect clients’ data. Her head would roll.
And of course, Shannon had Kim pegged as a pathetic woman crazed in love. She wouldn’t suspect her of anything.
Be the girl who just went for it.
Shannon shook her head. “I hope that'll get the creep out of your system, once and for all.”
THE END
Ann J. Brady is a Palliative Oncology nurse by day and a writer by night. She is fascinated by the back stories of her patients and their families and discovering how past experiences influence them as they review their lives. She draws from those experiences as a starting point for crafting her stories. With her first novel complete, she is hard at work on a second one. Ann lives in Southern California with her husband and a sweet but goofy dog – both of them make her laugh! She is the mother of three sons, grandmother of three boys, and has given up on living in a testosterone free zone. |
Angel Kisses
Stevie shook the side of my newspaper. “Grandpop. Grandpop!”
I glanced over the top. “What’s up, big guy?”
“He told me he knows you.” Stevie leaned over the arm of the chair and pressed his face close to mine, eyes blue and intent, with a smattering of brown freckles across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes. He was missing two of his bottom teeth, a vast gap when he smiled. He wore his Pinky and the Brain tee shirt that was a hand-me-down from his older cousin and one his mother didn’t approve of.
“Who knows me?”
“My imagine friend.” I raised my eyebrows at Ruby, seeking guidance. We were watching Stevie for a weekend while his folks had a get-a-way. I’d been placed under strict instructions not to tease him about his imaginary friend, what he called his imagine friend. Ruby had told me, “It’s a sign of creativity.”
“Is that how they explain it these days?”
“Leave him be. His parents don’t want him upset.”
I imitated the indulgent smile she’d perfected in her years as a grandma.
“So, your imagine friend knows me?” I said. “What’s his name?”
“You have to guess,” he whispered, his sweet warm breath a tickle in my ear. “It has to be a secret, just like before.”
“Okay.” I wanted to get back to reading about the Dodgers and my favorite player Mike Piazza. But instead I folded the paper in my lap. “Why don’t you tell me more about him and then I’ll guess.”
“He has dark hair and it’s curly.”
“Sounds like your daddy when he was little.”
He nodded, not because he agreed but because he had more to say. “And he likes to play baseball. He wants to be a pitcher when he grows up and he’s older than me, he’s nine.”
“Well, he sounds very interesting.” I picked the paper back up, but Stevie put the palm of his hand against my cheek and turned my head toward him, the way I’d seen his mother do. “Okay, what else can you tell me?” I said.
“He has freckles all over his face. Mom says freckles are angel kisses. She says angels come when you’re sleeping and leave kisses on your face. Did you know that, Grandpop? Did you?”
“Angel kisses.” I whispered the once familiar words.
He tapped his fingers on my cheek. “Grandpop, Grandpop. Guess who it is.”
“Is it Santa Claus?”
“No, silly.”
“The Easter Bunny?”
“Grandpop.” He giggled. “Make a real guess.”
“How about one of those Power Ranger guys you like so much?”
“Nope.”
“You’ve got me stumped Stevie. I give up. Why don’t you tell me?”
He whispered even lower. “It’s Andy.”
I drew in a quick breath, a visceral moment of recognition and dread. Andy was nine when it happened. He loved baseball and he used to brag that when he grew up he was going to be a big-league pitcher. He had brown curly hair and freckles, tons of them. The living room window was open, and a breeze rustled the curtain bringing in the scent from the jasmine Ruby had planted outside. How long since I’d thought of Andy? I used to think of him every day, now I couldn’t remember the last time.
“Grandpop?”
Stevie’s fingers pressed into my palm, but I ignored him. Angel kisses. That’s what Mother called them, right up until that one day, then I never heard her say it again, as if kisses from angels were all used up. Mother would kiss Andy and me and tell us that kisses for little boys only came from angels or mothers, then she’d tickle us.
Mother read to us every night, not little kid stories but adventure books. We were half way through Gulliver’s Travels. She cradled the book in her lap and traced her index finger beneath the words, stopping to point at the colorful illustrations. Andy got to turn the pages because he was older. I’d lean against Mother and she held me close with her free arm. When she finished the chapter, she always whispered the same thing, “My two precious boys.” Then she climbed off the bed and kissed me goodnight, once on the tip of my nose, once on each eyelid. Her soft hands smoothed my hair, then she tucked the blanket up to my chin. “Sweet dreams, number two son.”
When she bent over to kiss Andy he turned away. “Mother, I’m not a baby.”
“Is that so?” She slipped her fingers beneath his arm and tickled him.
“Mother!”
“You think you’re too old for my kisses?” I felt her warm weight as she stretched across me; her free hand tickled me, too. “Look at all those angel kisses.” She smacked kisses on Andy’s cheeks and forehead. “I can’t let the angels beat me.” He wriggled and twisted as Mother tickled and kissed him. “I have to catch up in the kissing department,” she said.
“Angel Kisses,” I said.
Stevie put his arm around my neck. “That’s what Mom calls them.”
I tasted the memory, so bitter I needed to get fresh air. Andy, Andy, Andy. I used to repeat his name when I was afraid because just saying it had comforted me. When had I stopped? It had slipped away unnoticed, buried in my childhood, outgrown, moved on from. Andy. I stood quickly, and the folded paper knifed its way to the floor.
“Stevie, go sit with your Grandma for a minute,” I said.
Ruby sat in the rocking chair. Her knitting needles clicked together as her hands danced over the white scarf she was making, but she paused when I got up.
“Sweetheart?” She tilted her head to one side.
“I need a little air.”
Her eyebrows lifted and her needles stopped their soothing click-click. “Bring me a book Stevie and I’ll read to you.”
“But I want to...”
“Mind your Grandma,” I said, a clip to my voice I hadn’t intended.
I walked to the backyard, my breathing fast and sharp, like I’d been running in a race and had just crossed the finish line. My chest tightened the way it did when I was having an angina attack, though this was different. Not the heaviness of an attack, but an ache that went all the way through me. The weight of missing him was so powerful I couldn’t breathe. I sat in the Adirondack chair under the Jacaranda tree and stared through the lacy greenery to the cloudy sky. I took slow deep breaths like they’d taught me when I was doing cardiac rehab. I hadn’t thought of Andy in a long time, yet it felt like he was right there with me. The way it did when he came to see me at night, telling me not to be sad, staying until I fell asleep.
The leaves from the tree rippled shadows across my lap. The breeze was cool, spring fresh, what Mother called an airish day. “Andy.” I said it out loud and half expected him to answer. “I’m sorry,” I said, then added what I always did, “You were supposed to be here.”
Long Beach, California in 1932 wasn’t like it is in 1996. Back then it was a tight knit community and we knew all our neighbors. We lived in a two-bedroom bungalow; it was small and cramped but Mother made it nice. There was a parlor, a large kitchen, and two bedrooms. Off of the parlor was a tiny wood paneled library that Pops made into a room for my two little sisters. Mother and Pops used the smaller bedroom and the four of us older kids shared the larger one. It was big enough for two double beds, one for Andy and me, and the other for the big girls, Ella the oldest who was twelve, and Maddie who was ten. Mother had Pops hang a clothesline between the beds and pinned a sheet over it to give the girls privacy. Andy loved to lie across our bed and shoot spit balls over the top to annoy them. He’d tear off corners from his school papers, rolling them into little balls and stockpiling his arsenal until they were busy doing homework.
“Andy, you’re not supposed to do that,” Ella said after he launched his attack. The pffft of each spit wad hurtling over the sheet made me grab my belly to keep from laughing.
Maddie wasn’t as patient as Ella. “Stop it right now or I’ll tell.” Maddie’s threats never worked with Andy. Pffft, pffft, went each one. I snorted into my hand unable to stifle the laugh. He rolled onto his back, his chest heaving with mischief. “Pops,” Maddie yelled. “Andy is bothering us while we’re doing our homework.”
“That’s enough,” Pops called from the other room.
“Ohhh, Mad Maddie,” Andy whispered, but loud enough for her to hear.
“Pops, now he’s making fun of me. Get him to stop.”
“Andrew,” Pops said. And he stopped, for a while anyway.
Down the street from us was a duplex where Mother’s sister and her husband lived. We didn’t call them Aunt and Uncle like most kids, instead we called them by their first names, Junie and Mack. Mack and Pops were in the Great War together. They worked as handymen doing anything they could get paid to do. The Depression was on and there wasn’t much work. Once I asked Andy what the Depression was, and he laughed. “You’re such a lame brain, don’t you know anything?” But he told me it meant there was a big crash in the banks and all the money and jobs were gone. He acted like he was smarter than me because he was nine and I was only seven, but he still told me stuff.
Junie had no kids of her own and spent most days helping Mother with all of us. We were a big happy family, that’s what I remember best, how happy we were. Pops and Mack came home from a job laughing and slapping each other on the back, then they trudged down to the American Legion for a smoke and a game of cards. Junie was around to help Mother bathe the little girls or help us bigger kids with homework. They’d stand close while they folded clothes, layering them in the laundry basket while I sat at the kitchen table drinking milk and eating cookies.
“What did you say?” Mother asked. Junie whispered something I didn’t hear, her hands spun through the air as she spoke. “Junie! You’re so wicked.” Mother tipped her head back and laughed until she had to use the edge of her apron to wipe tears away. Every time they looked at each other one of them started to giggle. I loved watching them together.
The four of us older kids went to the parish school where the nuns taught. They were strict like Pops, but not frowny when they were upset, the way Pops got. They smiled and said it was important to behave and that all of God’s children were precious and loved. It was a five block walk to school and Pops rule was we had to stay together. But Andy and I didn’t like to walk with the girls. Instead we’d run ahead and wait at the corner for them to catch up.
“Arrggh,” Andy had hidden behind a bush and jumped out.
Mad Maddie yelled, “I’m gonna tell Pops on you.”
“Tattletale, tattletale,” Andy sing-songed. Our shoulders knocked together as we raced ahead to the next corner.
After school we’d do our chores as quickly as we could then tear out of the house into the backyard. There was always a clothesline full of diapers flapping in the breeze and we had to be a careful, if we got them dirty Mother would yell at us and maybe tack on chores or tell us we couldn’t play with Jimmy and Charlie next door. Andy was the unofficial leader of the pack, all of us boys did whatever he said. Since I was two years younger, I was lucky to be included.
One day Jimmy and Charlie showed up after our chores were done. We were in a hurry to play. It was early spring but warm, the beach sky milky and dense, perfect outside weather. “Where are we playing today?” I asked. We had three favorite places: first was the park with big climbing trees, next was the back-bay where we threw rocks into the brackish water. Andy liked to practice his fastball there. He was a lefty and said he was going to be the next Babe Ruth. The other place we liked was the stockyard, it stunk pretty bad but there was a lot to see. Mother didn’t like us going there because we’d come home smelling like cows and our pants would be dirty. She said it wasn’t a place for boys because it was where men worked, and besides, it wasn’t a playground. But that was exactly why we liked it. Plus, the earth there was good for digging.
Andy stood on the edge of the porch and pulled his shoes off, hopscotching on one leg to keep his balance. “Let’s go to the stockyard,” he said.
“Mother says we shouldn’t play there,” I said. I sat on the step and untied my shoes.
“No,” Andy said, his hands on his hips, “she said she doesn’t like it when we play there, but she didn’t say we can’t go.”
“But…”
“‘Course if you’re too chicken you can stay home and play with Maddie and the little girls.”
The three of them laughed. “Yeah, go play dolls with the girls.”
Mother called from behind the screen door, “Boys, don’t get your school shoes dirty.”
Andy shouted, “Run!” And I ran off with them. I wasn’t going to be left behind.
At the edge of the yard we glanced over our shoulders to see if she’d come out to the back porch where we’d left our shoes piled by the door. Mother worried about how expensive new shoes were so it was easier to play barefoot. Just the day before she’d said, “Why can’t you boys be careful with your shoes the way the girls are?” Maddie had stuck her tongue out at Andy but made sure Mother didn’t see. She loved it when Andy got in trouble.
The stockyards had several fenced cow pens, each surrounded with a dirt path. We had to stay on the path or the men who worked there yelled at us, but otherwise they left us alone. We climbed the split rail fence and sat on top.
“Moo.” I said.
Andy cupped his hands around his mouth. “Moo, moo.” He stood on the highest bar of the fence, flapping his arms in the air like a bird and making faces. “Mooooooo.” I laughed so hard I snorted.
“Did you hear that?’’ Andy imitated me, and the other boys copied him. We leaned over the fence rails, laughing and snorting and making snorting pig noises and silly cow sounds. None of the cows bothered to look up.
“Let’s go to the dirt pile.” Andy jumped down from the top of the fence. “Ouch,” he said.
“What happened?” I asked.
He lifted his foot and rubbed the bottom. “Nothing.”
We followed him; the soft cool dirt of the path squished through my toes. Next to the barn was a big mound of earth, digging in it was my favorite thing to do. I pretended I was digging a foxhole like Pops and Mack told us they did in the army. Jimmy and Charlie worked next to me, but Andy sat cross-legged on the side and cradled his foot in his hands.
“Aren’t you going to help?” I said.
He scratched the sole of his foot. “I got something in my foot.”
“You better have Mother put that stingy medicine on it.”
“I hate that stuff.” He spit on a finger and rubbed where he’d been scratching. “And don’t be a tattletale and tell Mother or we’ll get in trouble for playing without our shoes.”
The last thing I wanted was for him to lump me in with Maddie. “I’m not a tattletale.”
“And don’t tell her we came to the stockyards either.”
The Adirondack chair creaked as I leaned back and closed my eyes. The breeze swayed through me just as the memories did. I felt the air against my face like when we ran to school in the morning, laughing at the girls, getting Maddie so angry she’d threaten to tattle to Pops. And I felt the too familiar guilt, the lonely emptiness of wishing to go back in time. If only we hadn’t gone to the stockyards that day, if only we’d worn our shoes. If only there were such a thing as do-overs. The day Andy got sick he woke up with a fever. Mother said he had to stay home and she’d scooted the rest of us out the door. “Off you go or you’ll be late for school.” Andy waved from beneath the bed covers, then rolled over so his back was to me. I never said goodbye.
Ruby came over to where I sat but I didn’t hear her until she was right next to me. She handed me the newspaper. “You dropped this,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Are you alright?”
“Course I am.” I picked at the seam on my pants. “Told you, I just needed a little air. Got kind of warm in there.”
She pulled a chair close and sat. She nodded. Waited. Not much gets past my Ruby. She knew something was going on with me, and I knew that she knew.
“Caught me by surprise that Stevie’s imaginary friend is named Andy,” I said. “That’s all.”
“Surprised me too.” She leaned close, taking my hand in hers. Her warm fingers squeezed. “You never talk about him.”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“Darling.” She rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb, but I pulled it away, afraid of her comforting me. Buck up, buddy, that was how I preferred to do things.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“It must be terribly hard.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“A long time to be sad.” Embedded in her soothing words was a layer of controlled irritation. My reluctance to share that part of my past was a breach of trust neither of us knew how to navigate.
The Adirondack chair creaked again as I stood. “No point talking about something I can’t change. It is what it is.” Not a snowballs chance in hell, I nearly said, just like old Pops. He was never the same after Andy, always so sad. We all were. But worst of all, I was sure Pops blamed me. Even at age seven I was supposed to watch out for Andy as much as he did me, that was what brothers were meant to do.
Ruby looked up at me. The sun peeked through the shadows from the leaves and mottled her face. Her gaze was direct, her smile thin, sad or disappointed once again, I wasn’t sure. “Darling,” she repeated. “It hurts to remember something like that.”
I tucked the paper under my arm. “I don’t think about him.”
The lie was quick and certain. But the truth was slow, nagging and constant. So many times I’d wondered how different things might have been if we’d played somewhere else that day.
“Anyhow, thanks for bringing me the paper.” I walked to the house without looking back. I was Pops son after all.
The walk home from school took longer without Andy to chase around. I ran the last block, eager to tell him Sean O’Brian got in trouble and was sent to the principal’s office.
I flung open the kitchen door but instead of finding Mother, Junie and Mack were there. Mack straddled one of the wood chairs, holding a mug of coffee in his hand.
“Where is everyone?” I said.
“Your folks took Andy to the hospital,” Junie said.
Mack stared out the kitchen window. He didn’t smile or clown around the way he usually did. I knew it was bad, because Pops didn’t like to take us to the doctor. The year before he’d had to ask Grannie for money for medicine for the baby, that was after he and Mother had a big fight, when Mother insisted the baby needed to see the doctor and Pops got upset, saying taking money from Grannie made them look like a charity case.
The house was scary quiet. We sat at the kitchen table and waited. Junie made us do our homework. Whatever else we did I don’t remember. Mother and Pops didn’t come home that night. After dinner Mack got up from his chair. He kissed Junie on the cheek, patted my head then bent down between Ella and Maddie, one hand on the back of each chair.
“You big girls listen to Junie. I’m going to the hospital to check on things.” The kitchen was yellow from the glow of the small light dangling above the sink. The door clicked behind him.
I tried to get Junie to let me wait up. “Please Junie, please.”
“Oh no, slugger. It’s a school night.” She kissed my forehead. “Off you go.”
In the morning Mack was back at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee in his hands. Junie fixed us pancakes, something we never had on weekdays. We ate in silence. Ella kept her head down, but Maddie looked back and forth between Junie and Mack. When she saw me staring at her she narrowed her eyes and stuck her tongue out.
“Come on, kids,” Mack said, “I’ll walk you to school.”
“What about Andy?” I asked.
“He has to stay in the hospital.”
Ella held my hand all the way to school and Maddie was quiet for a change. The three of us stood to the side while Mack talked to the principal, Sister Mary Bernadette. Her black veil swayed with each shake of her head, and the rosary at her waist tinkled as she fingered it. She never looked at us, but she reached over and touched Mack on the arm. There were tears on her face.
Mack was there at the end of school to walk us home. I wanted to ask about Andy but was afraid to. None of us talked on the way back. Junie put the little girls to bed early that night and Ella, Maddie and I sat at the kitchen table. Junie was helping the girls work on a puzzle and Mack sat with the paper laid out in front of him. He’d handed me the sports page and I tried to read, but I couldn’t concentrate. Pops and Mother walked through the door just as the sun was setting. I looked past them hoping to see Andy, to hear him tell a joke about missing school or about me having to do all of his chores. Pops stood with his good hat pulled low on his forehead.
“Those damn stockyards,” Mother said.
She stepped across the kitchen to where Junie sat and fell to her knees. It was the only time I ever heard Mother swear. Pops leaned against the door with his hands crossed on his chest. He watched Mother, shifting his feet in a way that frightened me.
“Is Andy coming back tomorrow?” I asked.
“He’s not coming home,” Pops said.
“Oh, Junie,” Mother cried. “I’ve never seen anything so terrible. They said it was lock-jaw. He cut his foot on something rusty and it got infected.”
“You mean he’s…” I said.
Pops sliced his hand through the air, “Yes. That’s what it means.”
It had to be a mistake. Andy was fine just a few days earlier, poking at me on the way home for saying I liked my teacher.
Ella slid out of her chair and hugged Mother from behind. Maddie stayed where she was with her lips pressed tightly together, no tears, or mean eyes, only silence. The bill of Pops hat shaded his face, but his gray eyes focused on me. I’d known better than to go to the stockyards, but I hadn’t wanted Andy to call me a tattletale. I hadn’t told anyone about the cut on his foot because then Mother would know we’d gone where she didn’t want us to go. But Pops knew all that now.
Junie rocked Mother in her arms. “There, there,” she whispered.
Ella began to cry. “Oh no, Mother. No.”
Pops kept staring at me. I wanted to run to him, to bury my face in his shirt, to have his hand stroke the back of my head and pull me against his chest. To have him say, “there, there,” to me.
Junie scrunched her eyes closed and rocked back and forth with Mother just the way she did with a crying baby. “Let it out, sweetie.”
Maddie didn’t move or say anything. Mack pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her.
“He’s not coming home?” I asked.
Pops walked out, slamming the door behind him. I turned away from the sight of Mother buried against Junie’s shoulder, of Junie’s eyes squeezed shut and the girls crying. My eyes began to burn like I might cry but crying was for sissies. I ran to the backyard where no one would see. As I came around the side of the house, I heard Pops yelling.
“How could you let it happen? How?” He stalked across the back lawn flailing his arms with each shout. “Damn you. He was just a kid. How could you let this happen?”
It was almost full dark. The area was lit by the porch light, still I didn’t see who he was talking to. Pops good hat was on the ground. I flattened myself against the wall, out of sight, a terrible game of hide-and-seek. He’d taken a bunch of Andy’s toys and lined them up on the grass: the metal dump truck with a missing wheel, his leather baseball mitt, his cigar box, the one with funny lettering on the side that was filled with secret treasures. He’d let me see what was inside only once - an army medal with a frayed ribbon, a yellow cats-eye marble, several rocks, a coin from Mexico he found at the park, a bouncy ball. Next to the box was his red fire truck, the one Junie and Mack gave him for his fourth birthday. He used to zoom it across the floor saying, “If I don’t get to be a pitcher when I grow up I’m gonna be a fireman and drive the hook and ladder.”
Pops held Andy’s wooden baseball bat, choked up on the handle like a homerun hitter. He lifted it over his head and swung it down. The first swing smashed the dump truck. The next flattened the cigar box. But he saved his best swing for the red fire truck, cracking the back first, then smashing the cab loose. The sound of crushing metal is something I still hear. Each time the bat connected Pops shouted, “Damn you God. God damn you.”
I started to cry then, not caring if he heard. I’d never been scared of him before. When he smashed the last toy, he stood over the broken pieces. His shirt had pulled out of the waistband and his shoulders lifted with each raspy breath. He held the bat loosely in one hand, his fingers clenching and releasing like he was adjusting his grip for the next pitch. That was when he heard me, turning with wildness in his eyes like I’d never seen.
He moved fast, only three steps and he was in front of me. I pressed my palms against the bumpy stucco wall.
“Pops? I’m sorry.”
He lifted me from the ground and started to shake me, his breath warm and moist on my face.
“Stop crying. Stop, already. Be a big boy.” He shook me harder. “Grow up, damnit.”
“No, Pops.” My shoes scraped against the wall. “Please don’t.”
Mack appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Pops by the shoulder until he released me, and I fell onto my rear end. Pops threw a punch at Mack, catching him on the chin and sending him flying. Mack landed on his knees; his head bent to his chest as if ready for another blow. I didn’t know what to do. I bit my lip, afraid for Pops to see I was still crying, afraid to reach out to either of them, and afraid to run away.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Mack said.
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or Pops. He stayed on his knees and didn’t get up until Pops reached a hand down and helped him stand. Mack picked me up and carried me away. I looked over his shoulder. Pops knelt in front of the shattered toys, picked up one broken piece and tried to fit it against another. His shadow extended beyond the circle of light cast by the porch light. I never saw the toys again.
I settled back into my recliner, the foot rest groaned as it extended. Stevie was sprawled in front of the TV watching cartoons. I unfolded the paper and started to read. The Dodgers had trounced the Giants the night before, but other than the headline proclaiming the win, the remainder of the column didn’t make sense and I reread parts of it several times before giving up. I didn’t even attempt to read the box scores. I rubbed the corner of the paper between my thumb and forefinger, the ruffling noise particular to newspaper. Andy and I used to sit at the kitchen table on Sunday mornings during baseball season and he’d read the sports column out loud as if he were announcing the game, “And he slides into home like a bat out of hell. ‘Safe’ beneath the glove of the surprised catcher.” He’d slap his hands on the paper and make the same crinkly sound. His antics made Mother laugh, and Pops shake his head. I was mesmerized by him.
I glanced out the window to our long expanse of front lawn, green and smooth, and pictured Andy on the scrubby uneven grass of the house in Long Beach, slapping his fist into his mitt and winding up like he was a pitcher. Hey batter, batter. I’d believed him when he said he was going to play in the big leagues when he grew up. God, he was the best. We were supposed to grow up and work together like Pops and Mack, to live down the street from each other. Sadness sliced through me. I wanted to remember and wanted to forget all at the same time.
Ruby came back inside, the rear door clicking behind her. She paused in the doorway and stared at me, maybe waiting to ask if I was okay, to reach out again, but I looked away from her and pretended to read the paper.
“Stevie, sweetie, let’s get a snack in the kitchen,” she said, helping him to his feet and leaving me alone, like I wanted and didn’t want.
The morning of the funeral Mother hugged me hard. “Don’t ever play without your shoes again. And no going to the stockyards.” I’d nestled my head against her neck and smelled the perfume she only wore to church. “I’ll never fuss at you about dirty shoes again, I promise.” I wanted to tell her that I’d told Andy we shouldn’t go to the stockyards, but if I did it was like I was tattling on him when he wasn’t there to tell his side. He’d cut his foot and I should have told her that too. But I chickened out when she kissed me on the forehead and said, “My sweet, sweet, number two son.”
A few years later Pops was helping me change the oil in my first car when he said, out of the blue, “It’s my fault about Andy. I knew the stockyards were dangerous. I should have forbidden you to play there.” It was the closest we ever came to talk about him. I took a deep breath, ready to finally confess everything but in the next moment he said, “hand me that box wrench,” and I missed my chance.
After the funeral Pops never went to church again. He said he didn’t believe in a God that took someone like Andy. A year later Mother had another baby, a boy. I wondered what we would call him and asked Ella, “Will we name him Andy?” I was thinking about how we did that with a kitty we got after our old tom died.
Ella said, “No, and don’t say anything or Mother will start crying again.”
It was hard to sleep alone in the big bed. I’d roll over and expect Andy to be there and when he wasn’t I’d start to cry. I missed him all day long and at night the hours of missing him stacked up and overwhelmed me. One night I woke and he was sitting next to me in bed. His hair was damp and smelled of shampoo, as if he’d just gotten out of the bath before climbing into bed. I rubbed my eyes with a fist and stared at him.
“Hey, squirt,” he said, his usual greeting. The light from the hall made his face shine. Freckles, I saw his freckles and remembered Mother saying they were angel kisses. “Don’t be crying all the time,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Otherwise kids will start calling you crybaby.” He whispered, “I’ve been practicing my fast ball.” I wanted to ask where he practiced but was afraid if I did he might disappear and I’d find out I was dreaming when he seemed so real. If it was a dream I didn’t want to wake up. He teased me too.
“You like Roseanne.”
“Do not.”
“I saw you staring at her.”
He snuggled under the covers, pulling at the blanket like he always did, and I fell asleep listening to his soft snoring. In the morning he was gone. I rushed into the kitchen to tell everyone, but no one believed me. Instead Ella told me to shush and Maddie said to shut up and stop making up stories, mean like, and she stuck her tongue out at me, glad I was the one getting into trouble and not her. Through her tears that morning Mother said, “Sweetheart, Andy is a guardian angel now, watching over all of us.” It was the last time she said his name.
But he kept coming back. I never knew when he’d show up. Another time I woke, and he was on top of the covers leaning against the wall. He had a baseball that he threw up in the air and caught with his mitt, each toss landing with a thump. I worried the noise might wake up the girls and Maddie would yell to Pops that I was throwing the baseball around and talking to myself and he needed to make me stop.
“Shhhh.” I held my index finger up to my lips. “You have to be quiet.”
He ignored me and tossed the ball again. “You have to stop being afraid,” he said.
“I’m not afraid.”
“Are too.” The ball arced back, and he had to dive to catch it, the thump deeper than before. With the next toss the ball tapped the ceiling. Pops would think I’d been playing when I was supposed to be sleeping. And I couldn’t blame it on Andy.
I knew enough to know he wasn’t really visiting me, that it was a dream or my imagination at work. I’d turnover in bed and he’d be sitting there. One night he said, “I wish I could keep coming but I can’t.” He looked kind of sad but in the next second he smiled. “Squirt, all you gotta do is think of me, like I’m here now, and everything will be alright. I promise.”
“Are you my guardian angel? Mother said you are.”
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone I was here. Remember, it’s a secret.” He held his index finger up to his mouth. “Shhh.” He scrambled off the bed and the nubby blanket slid off into a neat pile. “I’ll come back if I can.”
I’m not sure why he couldn’t come back. I kept hoping he’d find a way. I tried to remember him, at least for a while, but there was no one I could talk to about him. So I started to forget, just like Pops.
“Grandpop?” I spooned mashed potatoes onto Stevie’s plate. “Did you have an imagine friend when you were little?”
I slid a napkin onto his lap. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then who did you play with?”
“Eat your dinner, son.” I buttered one of Ruby’s cheese biscuits and placed it on the edge of his plate. “Go on, eat up.”
Stevie squinted his eyes at me. “But who did you play with?”
“The boys who lived next door. And my brother.”
“I wish I had a brother. Or even a sister.” Stevie took a bite of the biscuit. “What’s your brother’s name?”
“William.” Which was true and false. William was born after Andy died. He never played with me and the boys next door and Andy was never part of his family. Ruby smiled at me, the closed smile of an acknowledged falsehood.
“Was he your big brother or little brother?”
“Little brother. You’ve met him, remember? Uncle Will?”
“Did he play baseball?”
I went for the deliberate detour. “Did you know the Dodgers won last night? And Piazza hit a homer.”
“Sweetheart,” Ruby said, “tell him about your big brother?” She gently pulled me back on track. Stevie owl twisted his head from Ruby to me.
“You have a big brother?”
“I had a big brother. His name was Andy.”
“Like my friend.” He clapped his hands. “I wish I had a real brother. Andy told me he had a little brother. He said he used to make him laugh.”
“That’s real nice,” I said. I pointed to his plate. “Back to eating your dinner big guy.”
He took one bite of his potatoes. “Sometimes Andy’d pretend he was a cow and go Moooo.” His laugh hiccupped into a snort. He cupped his hands around his mouth and repeated the sound. “Moooo.”
How did Stevie know about cows and silly moo sounds and snort laughing? He was telling a story I had lived.
“Have you ever seen a real cow, Grandpop?”
“I have.”
“Were you afraid of them?”
I shook my head. The cows never scared me, going to the stockyards hadn’t scared me either. But I hadn’t known there were things more dangerous than cows and stockyards, and dirt. “No, I’m not afraid of cows.”
“Andy said he isn’t afraid of anything and that I shouldn’t be either. Isn’t that right?”
Ruby reached over and tapped Stevie on his forearm. “Sweet boy, time to stop talking and eat your dinner before it gets cold.”
He slurped down two more bites. “Grandpop?”
“Uh huh.”
“Are you afraid of things?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’m afraid of the dark.”
“I used to be afraid of the dark when I was your age.” Mother always left the hall light on. She said it was so she could see when she got up with one of the little ones. But she knew I was afraid of the dark, and afraid to admit it.
He forked some green beans and held them up. “Because Andy says not to be afraid.”
“That’s good advice,” I said. “I think there’s ice cream for dessert, but only if you eat your dinner.”
“Just one more question.” He smiled at me, knowing he could push the boundaries a little with his grandpop. “What happened to Andy?”
It was the question I hated most, the reason I’d learned long ago not to mention him. Folks got upset when they heard. They’d look at me with that mix of pity and curiosity - people always want to know about death. I’d end up feeling like I had to comfort them. And I hated the pity eyes, the slow shake of the head, the sad half smile, and the awkward silence of the unasked follow up questions. It was better all-around not to mention him.
“He hurt his foot and it got infected.” I leaned over and cut his meat into smaller pieces. “It’s nothing you have to be scared about. Andy is right, you don’t have to be afraid.”
I glanced at Ruby. She’d stopped eating and was staring at me. I shook my head at her, knowing she wanted to hear more of the story I’d never told. She had asked about Andy a few times but when I evaded her question she’d stopped, hoping perhaps that I’d trust her enough one day to finally tell the story. But it was me I didn’t trust. I was afraid to think about that day at the stockyards and the terrible time after. It was more than toys that were smashed that day.
Before I even opened my eyes, I knew he was there.
“Andy?”
He laughed. “Hey squirt.”
It was a strangely familiar thing for him to say. He looked like he always had with curly hair and freckles, Peter Pan, while I was an old guy with a wife and grandkids. “Shh,” I shrugged toward Ruby, asleep next to me.
He sat cross legged near my feet.
“Where have you been?” I whispered.
“Around.”
I squinted my eyes as if by blurring my vision I’d be able to figure out if he was real or if I was dreaming.
“I like Stevie,” he said.
“He said you’re his imaginary friend.”
Andy nodded. “He has a good imagination.” Did I dare ask if that meant he was real rather than something made up? “You know, you don’t have to be afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“Sure you are.” He smiled like when he teased me about liking a girl and laughing when I denied it. “You’re afraid it was your fault.”
“We shouldn’t have gone there.”
“Yeah, probably not.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It was an accident, that’s all. Accidents happen, isn’t that what Mother always said?”
“Does Stevie really see you, like I see you now?”
He shrugged.
A sliver of light cut through the gap in the curtain and divided the bedroom into two, as divided as my mind, sliced into pieces of sorrow and guilt, and into joy and wonder, the satisfaction of having seen Andy, in a visit or dream, I wasn’t sure which, only that he felt real. I’d hung onto the sorrow and guilt yet buried them, the deep roots strangling out the happy times before he died.
Memories kept me from falling back to sleep: sweet memories, funny ones, and regular everyday ones like running to school or playing catch in the front yard. Ruby rolled over and, somehow knowing I was awake, reached for me.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I can’t stop thinking about Andy.”
She clicked on the bedside lamp and rolled to her side propping herself on her elbow so that one side of her face was shadowed. “Tell me.”
I rested on my back and stared at the ceiling. “He was a good brother. Everyone liked him.” I smiled. “He was always teasing people and making them laugh. You would have liked him.” I pictured him flicking the dish towel at me then laughing and calling me lame brain.
“I’m sure I would have,” she said.
“Mother said she should have named him Malarkey since he was always getting into trouble.” I went silent, as happy thoughts were eclipsed by reality. “It happened so fast. He cut his foot when we were playing at the stockyards. One day we were walking home from school and a couple of days later he was in the hospital dying from Tetanus.”
She placed her hand on mine and this time I let her squeeze without pulling away. “We weren’t supposed to go there. But he told me not to be a tattletale and that if I said anything we’d get in trouble. So I never did, even after he got sick.”
“You were only seven.”
“I knew everyone blamed me, that they wished it’d been me instead of Andy. Everyone loved Andy, everyone.”
“Oh, sweetie.”
“We weren’t allowed to talk about him. Like we were supposed to just forget. I was so lonely with him gone. I didn’t know what else to do so I went along. I pretended too.”
“Such an unimaginable thing to lose a child, to lose a brother.” She spoke in a soft whisper, slowly shaking her head.
Silence filled the room, so familiar and so blank. “He used to visit me at night when I couldn’t sleep.” I let the words rush out of me, a confession of sorts.
“How lovely,” she said, no hesitation, no raising of an eyebrow or a pity smile. No anger that I’d never told her even though I knew that she knew.
“They were real visits, not dreams.”
“Of course.”
I paused a moment. “He was here tonight.” I waited for her to say I was being ridiculous or childish or maybe to get angry for making something up. “I suppose it was a dream, but it felt real.”
“Tell me about it,” she said. She let out a long slow exhale, the kind of sigh that came when someone finally told you the truth. I paused again. My inclination was to quickly dismiss what I’d told her, to play it off as a joke, wave my hand through the air to clear away the notion. Except I wanted to tell her, the same way I’d wanted to tell everyone when he first visited, when no one believed me, and everyone got angry.
“He sat right there.” I pointed to the end of the bed. “He was wearing an old pair of dungarees with the knees torn and frayed white.” She nodded. “He said it wasn’t my fault, that it was an accident.”
“He’s right you know.”
“You don’t think I’m crazy? Making things up or hallucinating?”
“No, neither. Just really, really sad. I’ve always wished you’d tell me about him, that maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much.”
“I couldn’t.”
“You kept your memory of him locked up, like the picture in the drawer.”
“You know about the picture?”
She clasped my hands in hers and lifted them to her lips. “Of course, I do.” Her thumb made circles across the back of my hand. “You know, it’s okay to talk about him. And it’s okay to miss him.”
I puffed out a long breath, afraid my words might catch in my throat, or worse I might cry. “I loved having him as my big brother. He was a good big brother. He included me in all kinds of stuff, most older brothers wouldn’t have done that.”
She snuggled close, warm weight and soft comfort as she rubbed my arm. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“I wanted to talk about him.” I drew in another long breath. “But every time I tried to everyone got upset. Even Ella got mad. Mother would cry, and Pops would yell or walk out of the room.”
“It must have been hard for everyone. But never talking about him kept you from those good memories.”
“I didn’t want to make things worse.”
I rolled over and dug through the drawer of my nightstand to the framed picture buried there, a treasure I’d been unwilling to share. I held it out to her. “Pops took it of us the summer before he died.” I’d never spoken of it, but she’d known it was there all along and had waited years for me to tell her. I touched the surface of the silver and blue frame, ran my fingers down the glass, over our smiling faces.
I passed it to her and she cradled it in her hands. “Such a sweet picture. I can see how much you loved each other.”
The years of keeping it hidden meant I hadn’t looked at it in a long time. I’d kept it there, folded under an old tee shirt and the prayer book I mean to read from but never do. His arm is slung loosely around my shoulder and we are both grinning. My top front teeth are missing, and Andy’s smile is so big the sun is reflected off of it.
“It was under my pillow for years. Mother would change my sheets and I’d find it tucked back in place. We never spoke of it. It was our strange secret. She must have cried every time she saw it.” I touched the edge of the frame. “There were so many times I wanted to talk to her about him, to ask why it happened and whether it was my fault, but I knew not to ask, especially if Pops was around. When I went away during the war I left the picture in a drawer Mother had cleared for me. It was there when I came back, smoothed out and in this frame.”
“I like his freckles,” she said. She circled her fingers over the glass, as if she were touching him. “Angel kisses, such a sweet way to describe them. He looks like he was a good brother.”
“Yes.” I nodded, unable to say more. I missed him fiercely, but I also missed remembering him, and being able to talk about him.
Ruby handed the photo back and I put it on the nightstand. “There, that’s a good place for it,” I said.
“Perfect,” she said.
She turned the light off and nestled against my chest. I let out a long sigh, then another. I stared at the photo; the memory of that day was as imprinted in my mind as the picture. Ruby fell back to sleep, her warm breath soft and regular against my neck. And in the dark room the silver of the frame caught the halo of light from the front porch and helped me fall asleep.
Lalit holds a Mechanical Engineering Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from Columbia University, NYC. He has worked with Xerox and various consulting engineers. In addition, he owned a garment private label business for several years. He has attended two writing workshops led by Peter Murphy and Judith Lindberg, both published authors. |
A Canary’s Song
It was Auntie Arushi who deserved kudos for the achievement of this autistic child. She bega Arjun’s serious preparation six months ago when she bought the latest version of the Thesaurus for him. Each day she earmarked words to be learned: Arjun went home and memorized the meaning of words and next day would be the day of reckoning. This is when Arjun and Abhay came to the temple where Arushi was a helper to the chief priestess, Anandiji.
***
Life often is uncharitable to you. Many heartaches had dogged father and son which began with the apocalyptic trick by the almighty. Arjun was born as an autistic child and a few years later his mom died in a car crash. Left were vestiges of a shattered life, a life that could be bearable only due to the monumental bond that existed between father and son and the common thread of their remembrance for their departed loving mom/wife.
In the early 70s of India, there were no opportunities for autistic children. Life was a humdrum existence, relegated to eating, sleeping and aimlessly spending the day. In many cases, even that fell short. With normal siblings, attention was focused on them. Arjun was not subject to this competition. He was an only son. He had the full attention and love of his dad. Abhay, his dad, forwent his career as a spin bowler for the National Cricket team of India.
***
Arushi experienced the frightening dream that recurred often at night. An effigy of the evil emperor, Ravana, from the epic Ramayana careened forwards which trapped her beneath. His flaming eyes which burnt red terrified her Followed immediately was an image of Rashid who sat atop and crushed her. She woke up in cold sweat, shivered as if she was doused with ice-cold water. For a few moments, she froze, incapable to get up, lie down or go back to sleep. She then got her composure back, got up and jumped out of bed. It was not that she had gotten over her trauma, but this was the only way she could cope.
Arjun reeled from the celebrations at the boisterous Cultural Day Event at school. He sat with children minus his regular aide, watched the incredible performances prepared by various cultural groups in the school. While others enjoyed the celebration, it felt like a major earthquake to Arjun. He was so uncomfortable in this new noisy and hectic environment, that he shrunk into his cocoon, felt threatened. He stopped talking. Mercifully, the event ended and soon he was at home with his dad.
Abhay felt his son acted abnormal, not talking, eating or even responding to any stimuli. He felt guilty to not have attended the school function due to a bout of flu. He counted on the aide to be with Arjun, but now found out, when he called the school, that she had played AWOL. This irked him, he was angry, but this was not the time to fret. He had to bring his son out of this coma. He knew he failed and immediately thought of Arushi, the new girl, at the temple who had arrived from India to be Anandiji’s, the temples head priestesses’ assistant. Arjun took a liking to her and was very happy in her charge.
It was about five PM when he entered Sri Venkateswara Temple in downtown Pittsburgh. His eyes looked for Arushi, who had begun to attract him but was like an elder sister to Arjun. He walked into the office, and lo and behold, he faced Arushi. After pleasantries, he told her why he had come. Arushi told Abhay to go to the main Puja Room, the main room of worship, and help Anandiji prepare for the evening rituals.
It took but a moment for Arjun to warm up to her. She went up-to little Arjun, knelt in front of him and pulled him into an embrace, She stroked his temple, looked into his eyes and said,
“Arjun, what is the matter? Did you make any new sketches? You were making one of the Statue of Liberty. Did you complete it?”
“I don’t have any new sketches. I didn’t do any more on the statue. It is just like it was before.”
“Why not? Don’t you feel like it? You do such wonderful drawings.”
“Today and for the past few days, Rachel has been very mean to me. She showed me a drawing she drew and asked me how I liked it. I told her the truth. The head-on the character was too large for its body, and the colors did not match. I told her the truth, and since that time, she won’t talk to me. During the gym, I fell twice and all the kids laughed at me, especially Rachel. Also, the school function felt like the eruption of a volcano.”
Arjun had let out the mother lode. Arushi was aware of his autism and knew this kind of behavior, and so was sympathetic. At least, he had begun to talk and open up with her. According to his dad, he wasn’t even doing that. She asked him if he would like to have an “Imarti and Coconut Barfi, popular Indian sweets. Arjun responded with a resounding yes. They went to the stock room, at the back of the temple and enjoyed eating the sweetmeats, sitting on chairs beside a table. After polishing off the sweets, she asked him if he would like to eat poori-bhaji, deep-fried bread and vegetables. Not only did he eat, but he ate to his heart's content. He blurted out,
“Auntie you are so pretty and nice. I love you.”
Arushi felt an affinity to this motherless boy. He reminded her of Jyoti, her little doll brother who had perished during the mass killings of Hindus by Muslims during their uprising in Kashmir in 1990. Alongside Jyoti, her Ma and Pitaji were also killed in the blazing fire when the Muslim crowd ignited their house.
Having mollified him, she said,
“Arjun don’t worry about what other children say. You are so good at sketching and spelling. You are number one in both these areas. Just keep improving and you will win the National Spelling Bee Competition one of these days. Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, auntie, I will from now on, I will start learning new words and will finish the Statue of Liberty sketch. ”
It was heartening to see the relationship that developed between the two. It was therapeutic for Arushi, to focus on a mission to help and improve Arjun, leaving her past behind. For Arjun, he found a sympathetic ear, which boosted his morale
Abhay’s Story
Abhay Mathur was having a bittersweet moment. His fingers were delivering magic. His spin bowling was decimating and mowing down the Tamil Nadu batsmen in quick succession. He was on a rampage.
In the first inning, he had captured eight wickets conceding only sixteen runs. In the second inning, though not as stellar, yet praiseworthy, five wickets for only eighteen runs. Though his teammates were giving him rapturous applause, his heart sank. He bled, having lost his wife Rima five days ago when she was hit by an automobile as she walked back from the local provision store. The driver was drunk, which caused him to lose control of his vehicle, who slammed down Rima.
In an act of sheer fortitude, he hopped onto a flight from Bombay and made his way to the cricket grounds of Madras. He was part of the team, that in the semi-finals eked out a victory against the Railways. Today, his team, Bombay, was pitted against the other finalist, Tamil Nadu. The night before the match was filled with some pleasant memories of his nine years with Rima, then shattered by the painful episode of the day he lost her. He was delirious. Ranjana, their family friend, took Arjun away to shield him from the aftermath, and the vast array of family and friends that had descended on the house to give condolences and sympathy. Abhay was tormented by having to live without his sweetheart.
When he arrived on the grounds, he was tense and nervous. They say that a little nervousness is good. Abhay was very keen and focused that day. It showed in his results. He had skittled the opponents like falling dominoes placed edge to edge. This was the best Ranji Trophy performance of his career. Bombay won by 123 runs clinching the trophy.
The victorious team's triumphant return was plastered all over the dailies and magazines. Its reception at the airport was tumultuous and the celebrations by jubilant fans went on for several days. It was a major civic event. But after that, what would happen?
He asked Ranjana to bring Arjun home, who had asked for mommy and daddy. He found daddy, but what about mommy? At first, Abhay was in a quandary. What does one tell a child of eight years, that mommy was never going to be around? Should he hedge around the question and wait for a time when he was older. He vacillated for a few days, but in the end, he decided to be direct. He asked Arjun,
“Arjun, do you love your mom?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Do you think, she is a nice person?”
“Yes, Dad. But, why are you asking these questions?”
“I will tell you in a moment. Do you know that there is a God who stays in heaven and who decides on what is happening on earth?”
“You and mom have told me about this. My answer is yes”
“Let me tell you that he often wants the best humans to live with him and your mom was the best. Do you agree with me on that?”
“Yes, my mom is the “bestest” person on earth.”
“That is the reason why your mom is not with us. God wanted a few good people, and so he picked on your mom. She is with Him.”
Whether Arjun understood this convoluted argument, it is hard for us to guess, but he got the drift. His mom was now in heaven, never to return. This was a heavy blow, and he pined for his mother but knew that that desire was never going to be fulfilled. His mother was lost to him forever.
A week after the Tamil Nadu game, Abhay received earth-shattering news. The Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) invited him to join in the First Cricket Test Match as India’s spin bowler against the West Indies to be played in Madras on September 7. The problem was that he was to join the Sewickley Academy, in the USA as their physics teacher on September 4.
Too many momentous things happened in Abhay’s life. The sledgehammer blow of Rima’s passing away, the invitation to join the National Cricket Team, which meant he had a very promising career in cricket and juxtaposed with these events was the joining date at Sewickley Academy. He, with Rima’s consent, applied to the Academy to teach physics some six months ago. They were taking this step primarily for Arjun’s sake. There were good programs in the States for autistic children, including classroom aides provided by the Board of Education. They wanted a better and meaningful life for Arjun so they were ready to disrupt their cozy life in India. But, this offer for the National Team of India meant a lot more money, a glamorous life, and world recognition. Short Rima, Abhay felt a heavy weight on his shoulders. What should he do? He didn’t have to think long. With Rima’s absence, Arjun’s life would be greatly affected for the worse. If he accepted the Academy’s offer, Arjun’s future would become more promising and there would be a change of scenery which would be a welcome change. He decided to forego fame and opted for his son’s welfare.
Arushi’s Story
January 19, 1990, had been one ugly night in Srinagar. From the mosque’s loudspeakers droned out three taped slogans all night long and fairly frequently during the daytime as well,
-“Kashmir mein agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai”
If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say “Allah-O-Akbar”.
-“Yehan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa”
What do we want here? Rule of Shariah
-“Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao raas te Batanev San”
We want Pakistan along with Hindu women, but without their men
As Arushi returned from a friend's place, a couple of lanes away, she felt a violent push. A large man, giant size, threw her on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. There was no time for resistance and besides what resistance could she offer. Her frame was small versus a man twice her size. No one heard her screams. She felt herself bobbing as the man sprinted toward his destination, which turned out to be a two-story house with faded exterior walls and a narrow staircase leading to the second floor. At the end of the staircase, was the padlocked entry door. Her assailant whipped out a key from his pocket, opened the lock, moved into the room and deposited her in the middle. The abduction took place in less than five minutes. He flipped the light on, and that is when she saw the man. Standing at 6 feet tall, he was a big man and quite athletic.
She had just begun to take in the scene when without any warning, he grabbed her blouse and tore it open. He yanked her bra and started to massage her naked breasts violently. She offered resistance by kicking his feet and biting his hand. What happened next subdued her rebellion. He brutally slapped her face several times and pushed her violently onto the cot. Next, her trousers came off and he raped her vigorously. After satisfying himself, the man left telling her not to put on her clothes.
All this happened so quickly, she had little time for reflection. She stood in the middle of the room, staring vacantly, for what seemed like an eternity. After a while, her nakedness seemed irksome, but the man had said not to put on her clothes. She was so brutalized that it took a lot of courage to dress, being apprehensive all the while. It must have been about three hours when he returned. His shriek, when he saw her in clothes, was deafening. He came up to her and shook her violently and then put his palm on her face and pushed back, till it hurt. He then disrobed her as before, threw her on the cot and raped her again. This time he gave her salwar, pants, but took away her blouse and locked it in an aluminum trunk. He said, "you are not going to get your blouse as punishment. Just stay in your pants." He then went up to the kitchen, cooked, ate, giving her some and then he left the house. In a semi-naked state, with spirits broken, in a stupor, she had all night to ponder She sat curled up in a corner of the bed crossing her knees with both hands.
So savagely attacked, she was desensitized. Arushi’s self-worth came cascading down. Her virginity was breached, and she felt unclean. Somehow, she felt that the world would hold her as less of a person, from being whole to one who was imperfect. She blamed herself for going to Sakshi’s house, but since she lived so close, it had seemed to be all right. She now reasoned that due to the tense atmosphere in the city of Srinagar, she should have stayed home. There was no reason to be brave, even though she had not seen her friend for over a month.
***
Arushi should have stopped blaming herself. It was the night of January 19, 1990, when the biggest massacre of Kashmiri Pandits and their subsequent exodus had occurred. Over 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits left en masse that night. This was the night when Muslim neighbors, friends, and colleagues, turned against them. Frenzied mobs, thirsty for Brahmin blood, roamed the streets and encircled Pandit houses. That very night her house was burnt down with no survivors. Her mom, pa, and brother, Jyoti, perished in the blaze. They had tried to come out of the house but were pushed in by the angry crowd. Her dad had been smitten by a sword on his face cutting a deep flesh wound. She found out about this tale, from a moderate Muslim who was present that night. She met him at the New Delhi refugee center.
***
Arushi came out of her reverie. She sat on the edge of the cot as the blaring slogans kept repeating from the loudspeakers in the mosques. She was petrified, shaking, thanking the Lord that at least her life was spared. She sat frozen all through the night. It was a cold night, but she did not have the presence of mind to go under the blankets, which were laid out on the cot. All she could do was to berate herself. Why did she come out of the house? There was tension in the city, she should have taken heed. Ma had admonished her, saying it was too late in the evening. But she had insisted and had her way.
Early in the morning, he returned, seeing her sitting in the same position. He let out a guffaw, laughed boisterously. He then pushed her on the cot, laid down next to her, pulled the blankets over and started to play with her body. It ended with her being raped once more. He then went to sleep. In a span of one night, she was raped three times.
He slept till noon, and when he got up he completed his morning routine. He then spoke,
“My name is Rashid. What’s yours?”
When she didn't reply the first time, he asked again,
“What’s your name?” She answered,
“Arushi.”
“You are lucky to be in here with me. At least you are safe. Last night was a night of terror for you Pandits throughout the entire city. There was rampant pillage, burning, looting, rape, and killing on a level never seen before.”
When Arushi showed no emotion, he said,
“Do not try to escape, because that is only in your best interest. There are young Muslim men on the streets who are looking for Hindu women. They will first rape you and then keep you in bondage or kill you.”
At this point, this information didn’t matter to Arushi as she was numb. She could not think about escape. As a gesture of reassurance, he told her,
“As long as you listen to me and do what I want, you will be safe.”
He took her to the kitchen and showed her utensils and provisions and asked her to cook for the two of them. She was to do this regularly from now on.
From then time’s march began. Days turned into nights and night into day as several days passed. It seemed like months to her. The two things she loathed were the blaring loudspeakers from the mosques and the frequency with which Rashid savaged and desecrated her body. One night he came up with a new evil request,
“I know I am a good fucker. You must be enjoying my fuck. Why then don’t you moan? From now on make those sounds or else I will beat you.”
This new demand was onerous, but she had no recourse. She started to play-act the sounds. With each wail, she recognized her helpless situation and its grotesqueness. To subdue her, he reminded her from time to time that she should not think of escaping. The young Muslim marauders outside would wreak untold acts on her and her body, and they might even kill her. In between, she had not much to do except straighten the tiny house and cook. Since there was only one cot, she had to sleep under wraps with him.
Rashid was uneducated and could not claim any training in a trade. As such, he did not have a job. He made do with odd jobs from merchants and households. Never married he frequented prostitutes when he had the money, which was not very often. Arushi’s arrival was a godsend. He felt empowered and exhibited complete control over her, especially her body. He liked to boss her around, terrify her frequently and enjoyed his domination.
By now, she was resigned to her fate. Rashid felt less threatening and in actuality he was. As long as she willfully kept satisfying his lust, things were fine. Her submission, without confrontation, was the price of his good behavior. As much as she was coerced and resigned to her fate, her psyche was in rebellion, lonesome and shrieked with pain, crying out for revenge.
Things got worse one day when Rashid brought over another man, middle-aged having a goatee. He asked her to bring some snacks and tea. She did what was requested. They had some small talk for about half an hour and then Rashid said,
“I am leaving, and Reza will stay back. You have to please him with anything he wants. Just consider that he is me. Fulfill his desires.” With that, he left. By now, she knew what she was being asked to do and it turned out that she was right. Reza tried to take off her clothes, but she resisted. She did not let him have his way. Frustrated, the man left leaving the door locked.
When Rashid came back, he unleashed punishment which felt like molten lava flowing down her neck. His first acts were tight slaps and then, pulling her by her hair, he led her to the bathroom, disrobed her completely and poured a bucket of cold water over her. After that, she was cowered into submission for Reza. He came once or twice a week, raped her and then leave. Rashid was making money from Reza.
Arushi was fed up. She had thought of taking her life by slitting her wrists but found she did not dare to do so. The result was that she made her second compromise. She felt so used, but other than cracks in her soul, there was precious little she could do. She asked the Almighty when this dreadful night would come to an end and new dawn would arrive.
Dawn did arrive one day. There was loud thumping on her door when Rashid was not there. The voice on the other side said that he was a Major in the Indian Army. After that, she heard the sounds of a hammer trying to pry open the lock. Soon, Major Rawat rescued Arushi, introduced himself, he said,
“I am on a special task force to find and rescue women such as you. We captured Rashid yesterday and on interrogation, he told us about you.” He further explained, “We will take you to the Tourist Reception Center at Lal Chowk. From there you will be taken to the refugee camp in Jammu and then onwards to New Delhi.
Arushi was so distraught that she could not comprehend what the Major said. However, she felt relieved and cried involuntarily. Here was a person who meant well, a characteristic she had forgotten. She lunged down and touched the Major’s feet, thanked him profusely. Major Rawat picked her up and said,
“You don’t have to worry from now on. Your safety is in the hands of the Indian Army. We will take you to a refugee camp and take steps to normalize your life.” He held, consoled and reassured her and after a few minutes, took her down to his jeep and transported her to army barracks. After a couple of days, aboard the state-run Srinagar Transit Corporation bus, under armed escort, she arrived at the Jammu refugee camp.
Some normalcy had returned to Arushi, but she still felt battered. Then, during a physical with a gynecologist, she said,
“Doctor, I have to tell you something about my captivity in Kashmir, but feel afraid to do so”
“You don’t have to because there are many women here that have gone through what happened to you.” She tried to coax her, “Being raped was everyone's lot. Is that what happened to you?”
This opening by the doctor gave her courage. She said,
“Yes, that is what happened to me. Rashid used to rape me several times a day. I was fed up, and wanted to slit my wrists, but was a coward. I have no right to live. I am unclean.”
“You are nothing of the sort. You are a victim. Don’t penalize yourself. Just look forward to tomorrow and live your life without guilt and with happiness.”
“Well, even if I can do that, what about the fact that I have missed my periods twice. What does that mean?”
“That you may be pregnant. Let’s get a test done.”
The test revealed that indeed she was pregnant. The doctor advised,
“Arushi you have two options, to either abort or bring the pregnancy to term. If you consider taking the life of a fetus as immoral, then you will give birth to this baby. But you may consider carrying this fetus to full birth as even more immoral given the circumstances of your impregnation. In that case, you will abort. The choice is yours.”
It certainly was a dilemma, but in name only. She instantly knew what she had to do. She could not live with a baby that reminded her of her days of horrific captivity. In as much as to abort was immoral, it was the lesser of two evils. She aborted her fetus and thereafter arrived in New Delhi at its refugee camp. Arushi was collateral damage to the uprising of Kashmiri Muslims. Her asylum status was granted by the US Consular Office and in six months, she was in New York City and then, by her request, was at the Venkateswara Temple in Pittsburg, where she wanted to work as a volunteer to the head priestess of the Temple.
Arushi was shattered. Though she had arrived at a haven physically, her very being was in turmoil. She could not bury the horrors of Srinagar. What did help was the peaceful ambiance at the temple and her daily duties. She assisted in general cleaning, vacuumed a very large area in several rooms, helped in the kitchen with cooking, participated and helped in the morning and evening puja. During festivals, extra duties were assigned to her. Life was tolerable. She liked her roommate Kusum.
***
Arjun arrived on the shores of America when he was eight years old, started his studies in second grade, when in fact he should have been in grade four. The transition from India was not easy. He regressed in his skills from an eight-year-old to a six-year-old. He was behind, but now he fell back even further. To assist him in his studies and social skills, the school system assigned him an aide who helped some, but still, it was an uphill climb. He exhibited symptoms of an autistic child. He hit himself out of frustration, threw himself around the floor. When he latched on a subject or project, he went deep in it. He struggled with eye contact and was not very talkative. Abhay saw a developmental pediatrician who recommended speech and occupational therapy for Arjun. This led to Arjun being treated by a therapist once a week, which led to marked improvement.
By November, Abhay fell in a groove as the physics teacher at the prestigious private Sewickley Academy. Abhay’s experience from India was coming in handy where he had taught higher-level classes. Sewickley prided itself as an avant-garde institution and its promotional material read,
“As Pittsburgh’s premier private, coeducational Pre-k through Grade 12 school, Sewickley Academy is distinguished by not only its rigorous academics and outstanding faculty, but, also by its student-centered approach to teaching and learning, to which every child is challenged to explore and excel to his or her highest ability. Exceptional programs, small classes, and talented faculty help our students become conscientious leaders, critical thinkers and responsible members of a global community"
A year went by and the two assimilated into life in the US. Arjun responded to treatment and was becoming normal. As a cricketer, Abhay loved sports, so he became an avid fan of American football. Helping him was the fact that Pittsburgh had a major NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Fairly soon, he acquired a working knowledge of the teams, team players and rules of the game. This ensured his greater enjoyment of the game. Helped in this effort were Monday mornings in the staff room where each of the staff touted their favorite matches, as well as how the Steelers had performed. Abhay earmarked Sunday afternoons and evenings for watching NFL matches on TV. Joined in was Arjun, who did not understand all the technicalities of the game, but had begun to enjoy all the hoopla.
Finally came a time, when with a fellow teacher and his son, Abhay and Arjun went to watch an actual game at Three Rivers Stadium. They enjoyed the outing and the game and as a consequence began to visit live games.
Father and son developed another interest, going to the Venkateswara Temple frequently. Besides reverence, Arjun developed an affinity for auntie Arushi. The two of them sat in the Bhandar, stockroom, where she fed Arjun sweets, Poori Alu, deep-fried bread and vegetables. They sat at the table and she read Amar Chitra Katha comics, which she had purchased at the Indian grocery store. These comics drew from the best stories from Indian history and mythology. She introduced Arjun to the great epics of India, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata, talked about the country’s courageous kings, from the Rajput and Maratha dynasties, and later on about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and the revered martyr Bhagat Singh, both of whom fought against the British. She told him about the man in a loincloth, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Bapu) who drove the British out of India by nonviolent means. She ordered Aesop’s Fables” from Amazon, a collection of short stories about animals. These animals were the central protagonist of the tale which had a moral timbre. She impressed on Arjun with the morals of each story.
At times, she wanted to talk to him about the Valley of Kashmir: Pahalgaon from where you could trek to the Amarnath Cave Temples, the Hindu shrine; Sheesh Nag Lakes; the pony trek to Gulmarg, Gulmarg surrounded by snowcapped mountains and lush green grass, the Shikaras, boathouses on the river Jhelum, and the lean, towering Chinar trees. The proud assertion of Kashmiri’s, “if there is a paradise on earth, it is Kashmir.” So much to tell but so little she did. Somehow, these memories were very blurry, It was as if they belonged to an earlier incarnation. She felt the pain that she could not recall the places of her birth. She so wanted Arjun to learn about these places because that would be a shortcut to Jyoti, but she was petrified to go there. Furthermore, she still had nightmares that would wake her up with chills, breaking a sweat.
Arjun turned out to be quite an artist. He showed his auntie Arushi all the sketches he did since they last met. He showed real promise. He did several views of the Venkateswara Temple from different vantage points. The sketches were amazing and professional. After finishing the Pittsburgh Temple, he took on the task of doing the Venkateswara temple in Atlanta, Georgia. Abhay downloaded the photos from the Internet. These two were followed by several others from other cities. Yet another time, he drew a blueprint of an energy-efficient house that won him first prize in a countywide competition.
The Arushi-Arjun bond was real and phenomenal. They both had improved their lot. Arushi got very interested and helped Arjun attain a semblance of normalcy or, better still, becoming normal. To that end, she found out about Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a psychotherapy technique that was very useful in treating Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). For starters, she found out the exact definition of autism:
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. The disorders are characterized in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communications, and repetitive behaviors, according to Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization.
A patron of the temple, Dr. Niranjan Patel, had a son inflicted with autism. He had a behavioral specialist, adept at ABS, come to his house to work with his son. Arushi asked the doctor if she could come and observe the session. She also told him that she could not pay. After getting approval from the therapist, she applied to the County Transportation for rides to-and-fro from the doctor’s house. After receiving the nod from the County, she started to attend these classes. With this newfound knowledge, she treated Arjun to good results.
Once there was a period when Arushi was not able to go to sleep due to her flashbacks. She asked Abhay if Arjun could stay with her during the holidays. Arjun spent three days and each night he rubbed Arushi’s back to put her to sleep. Thereafter he lied down next to her. Later in the night, she woke up and clasped him in her arms. This was a victory, a canary moment.
Arjun's memory powers were stalwart and because of this, he was a good speller. With this talent, he began to prepare for the Scripps Spelling Bee Competition. Auntie Arushi’s enthusiasm propelled him to try. She assigned work from the latest version of the thesaurus as homework, which Arjun learned at home. The next day was an examination day. As a result of this preparation, Arjun breezed through the regional and zonal contests and today was standing at the finals of the national competition being held at the Capital Hilton in Washington DC, June 2 – 3, 1993. Here is an account of his finals.
Scripps Spelling Bee
competition-finals
The following segment is courtesy YouTube
“The next word is “Negus,” spoke the moderator
“What is the language of origin? inquired Arjun
“Ethiopian to Amharic”
“What is the definition?”
“It is used as the title of the sovereign of Ethiopia,” said the moderator
“Could you please use it in a sentence?”
“The Negus ruled Ethiopia until the coup of 1974.”
“Negus,” said Arjun
For all the ambivalence Arjun felt about the word, he corralled it in. He had the expression on his face that said: "I'll take it."
“When in doubt, sound it out.” A word of advice from the moderator
“The next word is “iridocyclitis.” from the moderator
Arjun after the usual questions spelled the word correctly. He would spell the next word, “tokonoma” correctly.
“Arjun, that is correct. Since you are the only speller remaining in Round 15, if you spell the next word correctly, you will be declared the Scripps National Bee Competition Champion.”
The moderator announced,
“Enough applause.” “Here is your new word; “knaidel”
“Please give me the language of origin?”
“German-derived Yiddish.”
“No way, no way,” came from the crowd.
“Now be careful,” admonished the moderator
“May I have the definition, please?” said Arjun
“Knaidel is the small mass of Lebanese dough cooked by boiling or steaming as with soup, stew or fruit with which it is to be served. It's a dumpling. Mac hoped to find at least one more Knaidel in his soup bowl, but all he discovered was his missing denture.” The moderator provided the definition
Laughing by the spectators and officials followed and of course, by Arjun too.
“Are there any alternate positions?” inquired Arjun.
To which the Moderator replied, “There is knaidel and just knaidel.”
“knaidel,” was spelled by Arjun.
“That is correct. You are this spelling bee’s champion.”
Arjun stood there like a cartoon character, shook his head side to side, showed no emotion. When a huge volume of confetti rained down from the ceiling as a celebration, he still stayed riveted to the ground, making no motion. An official during the ceremony came out and garlanded him with the competition's gold medal. Later, he was center stage on the podium, flanked by two other runners-ups. Finally, he got down from the podium and ran straight into the arms of Auntie Arushi.
That day she had dressed in a white silk sari with a red border, much like the ones worn by Bengali women. She wore a pearl necklace which she had received on her previous birthday from Abhay. Complimenting the necklace were pearl studs which were a gift from Arjun, bought by Abhay but selected by Arjun.
Arushi was beside herself. She flashbacked to the days from the previous six months during which they toiled over the hardest words possible. It seemed like Arjun had learned all the words from the Thesaurus. Abhay was overjoyed at his son's performance but equally, if not more, with the bonding of two fringe figures, It, seemed like the two pulled each other from a swamp. It was time to celebrate. Abhay found Arushi a statue of femininity, remarkably beautiful in a sari. This was his first glimpse of her draped in this six-feet of cloth.
***
Things drifted along for about two years. During this time Abhay bought a house in a prestigious suburb of Pittsburgh. Arjun invited auntie Arushi to go to a Steelers game. Hesitant at first, she did not disappoint the excited boy. So, on a sunny afternoon, the three packed off to storm the Three Rivers Stadium to watch the Steelers play their rival, the New England Patriots. There was an air of excitement in Abhay's Honda Civic as Arjun showed off the precious little, he knew about the game. He yet was euphoric. Buying tickets, they entered the stadium and found their seats on the 50-yard line.
After getting comfortable, Abhay left the two and went to the concession stand to buy popcorn and drinks. While he was gone, Arushi was faced with an incident. In came a man who sat in the seat in front, which caused her to get agitated. The man was about 6 feet tall. She saw his face and was reminded of Rashid. She recoiled involuntarily and started to moan and then started crying. Listening to a sound behind him the man turned around to see who caused the noise. He was face-to-face with Arushi. Arushi's dam broke, she started to shake and yelled, “Ravanna, please don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, it’s hurting.” The man was dumbfounded, and Arjun went into shock and froze. By then Abhay was back and took in the scene. He tried to calm Arushi to no avail. The situation went from bad to worse, so Abhay decided that they should leave. He marched both-of them out of the stands, out of the stadium, and into the parking lot, heading home.
The ride home was very chaotic. Arushi, in a chorus, pleaded with Ravana to be gentle and not hurt her, while Arjun sat mum throughout the ride. When he turned over Arushi to her roommate, she became calm. Abhay started to tell Kusum, her roommate, about what happened when Arushi interrupted him and said that she was okay. At home, Abhay calmed Arjun. He reminded him of all the good times he had with auntie Arushi. He also brought out his sketches of the temple. He was able to divert his attention and very soon they were watching the same game on television.
The next day, when the two confronted Arushi, Abhay was apologetic. He put a palm on her shoulder to say he was sorry to have taken her out in an unknown kind of crowd. The minute he touched her, he was surprised by the response he got from her. She forcefully, repelled his hand and recoiled from him and said, "don't touch me." Abhay was taken aback, but Arjun saved the day. From his bag, he pulled out some new sketches he had done of the Akshardham Temple in New Delhi. The renderings were so lifelike that they caught Arushi’s attention. After that, the two sat down at their regular table and Abhay went to the Puja Room to help Priestess Anandi.
Arushi now became an enigma for Abhay. What caused this intense rebellion when faced by a certain kind of man? Her reaction to, “Ravana don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me, it’s hurting,” cried out loudly, that she had gone through a terrifying ordeal related to men. That must have been the reason for her pushing him back. There was only one answer to his queries. She had experienced rape and a very violent one at that.
Having come to this conclusion, he decided to help her. He now knew that he could not be the point man, but how about Arjun? Arjun seemed like the answer. He would have to coach his kid, but how? He did not have an answer. Arjun himself had issues, so he had to be careful. He still, when in solitude, was overwhelmed by Rima’s memory. He missed her horribly. If she were still around, life would be fabulous. They would have it all. His job at a prestigious Academy and the Board of Education’s help for Arjun. When Rima was alive, they had planned for a second child. Their desires were no more, Rima was no more.
Very soon, the snow made its arrival, a very welcome experience. He loved the flakes as they brushed against his face. It invigorated him, just like when mist during a rain-hit his face under an umbrella, during the monsoon season. Abhay had cooled off his contact with Arushi, but Arjun got closer. Then one Sunday, a few days before Christmas, Arjun brought some stellar news to Abhay about Arushi’s malady.
Arjun recounted what happened that day. He said that Auntie’s back was facing him when he entered. He thought he would surprise her. So, he quietly tiptoed and when he got near, he could hear auntie sobbing quietly. When he came in front of her, she was startled, but that seemed to be okay. He said that she gathered him in her arms and wept. After a few minutes, still crying, but through her tears, she asked,
“Why did God take away my Jyoti? Will you return my Jyoti? Will you become my Jyoti?
“Of course, Auntie. When I think of my mom, I think of you.”
Arjun told his dad that upon listening to his answer, she pressed him ever closer to her breast and started to cry loudly. I could hear her heart and could tell that they were tears of happiness. That was a canary moment. She found someone, she could call her own. After she regained her composure, she told me things about her past life. Her father was a very religious man, more so than her mom. He got up early at four AM, took a shower with cold water and then sat down and read the Ramayana for two hours. He must have read the Holy Book several times. Her mother was a good cook. They both adored her and Jyoti, her ten- year old brother. When I asked where were they now and why aren't they with you, she was silent for a long moment and then said
“The Muslim Mullahs burned them alive. I hate Muslims. There are some very bad men in this world. Not everyone is as good as your dad.”
She then gathered Arjun in her arms, in a tight hold, and kept sobbing. After a while, she wiped her tears and said,
“Arjun, don’t you ever leave me.”
“Never Auntie, never. If you describe Jyoti bhaiyya, brother, I will sketch him.”
Arushi in a Maxi Dress with her silk flower wreath
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Welcome
Arushi ventured into uncharted territory when she decided to dress in a printed, smocked maxi. In colors of peach, this rayon crepon number made her come alive in a way a sari couldn’t. It was a refreshing change. This was a first as was her visit to Abhay’s new house. When Abhay picked her up early from the temple, all three were supercharged. A brisk November morning saw an attraction that blossomed between Arushi and Abhay. Abhay had developed a liking for her, right from the very first meeting at the temple’s stockroom. At present, he gave her space.
When Arushi came out from the place of worship she held a brown paper bag. Upon being asked what was in the bag, she declined to comment. Curiosity aroused, as soon as they reached his house, Arjun became insistent. He wanted to know what was in the bag. What she took out was simply awe-inspiring. Arushi's craft-making ability was on full display. With the use of silk flowers, she had handmade a rather large, exquisite door wreath. This was a house warming gift from her. Little did the two know that she had labored hard, working well into many nights. Abhay was bowled over and Arjun was beside himself with excitement. This was not all. She had embroidered, with peach-colored silk thread on a piece of burlap in lazy daisy embroidery, the serenity prayer. The first thing they did was hang the wreath on the door, together with the prayer. She also had brought a wooden board that said “Welcome.”
Standing at the kitchen island, Abhay chopped onions, ginger, and cloves of garlic. He was to be Arushi’s helper in her cooking endeavors. Arjun challenged himself by taking on a monumental job. He sketched the kitchen, together with the people in it, himself, Arushi Auntie and his Dad. Everyone went about working on their project with diligence, and a can-do attitude. Arushi poured all her love into her curries; both meat and vegetable. She wanted her dishes to be standouts that day.
“Abhay, do you know how to devein shrimp?” Arushi asked. At the grocery store with Abhay and Arjun, she had purposely bought shrimp that had not been deveined. They were much cheaper, and she wanted to save Abhay some money.
Abhay replied, “Yes.” “Could you work on those next?” asked Arushi
“Okay, it will take a little time as I am not that fast,” replied Abhay
“Take your time as I am working on pea paneer. Next, I will work on the bitter gourd,” said Arushi
By now Arjun was done with the complete layout of the kitchen. Next, he began the hard part, imparting character to the sketch by filling in details. He knew it would take time, maybe the whole day. He didn’t mind, he just wanted to create a montage that did justice to the aura in the room.
Abhay deveined the shrimp. Next, he chopped okra, cauliflower, potatoes, tomatoes, and created a peanut paste in the blender for eggplant.
Before starting to cook, Arushi arranged the roses that Abhay had bought for her. Later she took the vase home, as per Abhay’s instructions. For the first time, since the brutal incident, she hummed under her breath, Hindi songs of Lataji, Mukesh and Chitra Singh.
The would-be lover's trilogy, which included Arjun, was in plain sight. It was a no brainer to see that Arushi enjoyed light banter with Abhay,
“Abhay, I heard from the grapevine that you were an ace cricketer while in India. Is that true?”
Well, I don’t know about being an ace, but I was offered a spot as a spin bowler for India’s Cricket Test match with the West Indies to be played in Madras,” answered Abhay.
“If that isn't being an ace, then what is?” asked Arushi
“So be it, if you say so,” replied Abhay
Arushi took small steps towards feeling normal. She knew though, that when night fell and she was alone, she would be petrified.
***
Though things were looking up, all three were fighting their demons. Hidden deep inside Arushi’s cylindrical wall was a sense of it being unscalable by any other and that she was hemmed in by the ghastly event with Rashid. She dared not think about it. She felt immense hatred towards the entire moment, the letch Rashid who had performed numerous satanic and sacrilegious acts on her body. She felt shame about her own body, which she felt needed cleansing, if cleansing was possible, from the defilement she had suffered at Rashid’s and guilt that she even came out of the house. For all these reasons, she did not recount it to anyone, and most certainly not to Arjun, who was the only person to have breached her armor.
Arjun benefitted tremendously from Arushi’s treating him with ABS. He no longer required an aide, he performed almost at Grade Level, he made friends and was able to learn in a group setting. Yet all this did not come without cost. Arjun had to diligently fight his battles every day to prevent relapse. Abhay had a void that only a woman could fill. He had thought of Arushi but knew that she would have to fight with her demons and win. Only then could she embrace a new relationship.
***
Arushi and head priestess, Anandiji, arrived punctually at 4 PM. Anandiji was to perform Sraddha, a ritual performed for one’s ancestors, especially deceased parents, for Abhay’s parents and ancestors. Upon arrival, Arushi was surprised to see framed sketches of Ma and Pitaji propped against the copper temple. Abhay had told her that this “Sraddha” was for his ancestors.
Arushi had blocked the memories of her loved ones until Arjun asked her if he could do sketches of her parents. For quite a long time, she resisted, until one day Arjun's persistence paid off. Sitting at the table in the stock room, she helped Arjun in sketching her Mom and Dad. Arjun took the sketch home, saying he was going to do embellishments on the clothes. Once at home, he added the embellishments and did duplicates giving Auntie Arushi a copy and keeping one for himself.
Very soon friends started to arrive. Arushi was touched. She took Arjun aside and asked him whose Sraddha was being performed. Arjun told her that it was for her parents. She felt gratitude towards Abhay. Moreover, a wave of remembrance for ma and pitaji surged through her body. She had begun to think about her past. Acts and events like these were helping her open-up. Yet, the only persons that would help her completely.were either Abhay or Priestess Anandi. She was not ready to talk to either.
The time came to begin the Shradha puja. Priestess Anandi knew her job well. She laid down all the arrangements for the fire ritual. What happened next caught Arushi by extreme surprise. Head Priestess Anandi asked her to sit on the seat reserved for the Karta, the person who performs the Sraddha. She had not expected that the Shraddha was for her parents, but now to sit at the helm of the affairs overwhelmed her. She did what was asked and went through the motions. Priestess Anandi chanted all the Shlokas, hymns, and narrated the story of Garuda Purana, the dialog between Lord Vishnu and Garuda (a bird), thus completing the puja. She had enacted the Sarvpitru Shradha, homage to one's parents and ancestors, meant for the situation when you don’t know the name of the principals whose shraddha was being performed. She had chosen the tithi, date, and the nakshatra, star, as close as she could. There were eleven Brahmins who were fed with sumptuous food and the ceremony was completed by giving the Brahmins Dakshina, fees. Finally, Priestess Anandi enshrined a puja room, room for worship, in compliance with Vastu Shastra, Feng Shui in Indian architecture. This act attracted and enhanced positivity and harmony to the house.
At the end of the ritual, Arushi caught Abhay at a secluded spot, and in a heavy voice, that bordered on tears, thanked him. Abhay dried her tears. She allowed that touch, but no more. She gently pushed him away. This happened about a week before they were to go to the Amarnath Caves in Kashmir.
***
One morning, on a trip to the temple, Arjun posed a question to auntie Arushi. He said his dad wanted to go on a trek to the holy shrine of Amarnath in Kashmir. He asked her if she would like to join them. It would be a three-week tour of India. Arushi was a bit startled as she had blocked images of Kashmir. They were too painful. She said,
“Let me think about it. Tell your dad I will let him know soon.”
After Arushi’s meltdown with Arjun, Abhay approached Head Priestess Anandi and told her about the episode. He informed her that Arushi was a rape victim and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He asked for help from the temporal head.
Abhay had done a lot of reading on PTSD. He knew that there were three avenues for recovery, through pharmacotherapies, psychological and sociological treatment. He was skeptical if Arushi would be ready to take medicine or to even acknowledge rape. Further who would prescribe that medicine. This method seemed like a dead end. Remaining were psychological and sociological methods. One technique was hyperarousal and re-experiencing feelings associated with the trauma through flashbacks and nightmares. This would cause Arushi to relive her trauma. But the question was how to bell the cat. The obvious answer was to take her to the abominable house in Srinagar. That reexperiencing was essential.
He approached Priestess Anandi who said,
“Abhay, let me talk to her. Just like in Christianity, a man or woman can go through confession, I think Arushi will open up to her priestess.
That settled that. Priestess Anandi, one morning after puja, detained Arushi and said,
“Arushi, I have been noticing since you came here that you don’t talk much and are generally quiet. Is anything the matter? You can tell me.”
“No Anandiji, I am okay.
“No, Arushi, you are not. Abhay told me about the episode you had with Arjun. Who is Ravana? And why is he hurting you?”
Arushi was taken aback. She felt that she was exposed, a warning that her days of solitude were over. She was reluctant to go there. She was afraid of the pain that remembrance would cause her. She wanted to nix the conversation right then and there.
“Oh, that was nothing. I was just thinking about my family.”
“No Arushi, you are not telling the truth. Something happened to you. To rid yourself of these demons, you need to talk. Also, Kusum told me that while taking showers, you have to have hot water. This one day when the shower head had no warm water, you did not take a shower. Why can’t you tolerate cold water?”
“Anandiji, what will you do with the truth? You can’t live or feel it.”
“I can try to understand your feelings if you tell me truthfully and in detail. Sharing burdens reduce pain.”
Arushi wanted to share for some time. Her flashbacks boiled over. So, in simple terms, she told Anandiji about Rashid and how he had raped her for three months, how she felt dirty and ashamed, and that nothing could cleanse her.
“What happened to you is not your fault, not by a long shot. You are a victim and you need support. Lately, I notice you have gotten close to Arjun but aloof from Abhay. With Abhay, you can come together and transfer your guilt to him. He is a wonderful human being.” She told her how he had sacrificed his career as a cricketer and opted for a better life for his child. He could have had international fame as India's spin bowler, but he did not want to dim his son’s light. He came to America.
“I like Abhay, but what can I do about these dreams? I can’t remove them from my mind.”
“That's just the point. Tell him all, every detail. I know he will forgive you for everything. He will take the stance that there is nothing to forgive. You are a victim. I know all three of you are going to Kashmir. Go to your house and the house where you were held captive. With Abhay by your side, you will regain your strength and your self-confidence. Tell him everything, every gory detail.”
After this conversation, going to Srinagar felt less onerous. She decided to brave it out. Two years of interaction with the Mathur family had healed many wounds. Arushi was able to lead an almost normal life. She began to enjoy life, unlike before when it was a drag. But still, she could not bury what had happened on the fateful night of November 19, 1990. It was so deeply locked in a dangerous part of her psyche, she could not shake them loose. Other than that, she had started to see life as half full. However, her only dilemma was that while she still had nightmares of Rashid; Ma, Pa, and Jyoti had become distant memories, but he was still there. It was an imperfect life, but at least it was one.
Abhay had consulted with a psychiatrist and his advice was that Arushi needed to visit the places where these tortures took place. She needed a gentle loving, firm, hand that could steady her when violent reactions occurred, when faced with traumatic spots and events. These trigger points were essential during the path to recovery. She had to make peace with her past. Once she was over this hurdle, then Abhay was to support her and confess his love. Once that happened, there could be one happy family of three. Abhay knew that during this holy trip, they were bound to hit Srinagar. That’s when he would act. He would take Arushi to the physical locale that tormented her.
A few days went by with no answer. Abhay took matters into his hand. He told her that in addition to the Sraddha which she attended, he wanted to take a pilgrimage, on his parent’s behalf, to the shrine located in the caves of Amarnath in Kashmir. He could go alone with Arjun, but he could not control the boy as Arushi could. This logic did make sense, so she agreed. She had begun to trust these two and Abhay once having put his hands on her shoulder and being rebuffed, had not tried that move again.
***
Abhay called Jaya Travels to book their trip to India Their first destination was New Delhi for a couple of days, and then onwards to Jammu by air, and from there their trek to Amarnath. So, the Amarnath Yatra, trip began. The brochure that the travel agent had given them, had the following map of the two routes.
Amarnath Yatra
The three sat down on the dining room table and thrashed out their itinerary. There were three routes. They were;
- Jammu-Pahalgam-Holy Cave (Traditional Route)
- Jammu-Baltal-Holy Cave (shorter, but a difficult trek, little amenities)
- Jammu-Pahalgam-Holy Cave-by helicopter
-Onwards by foot, pony or palanquin, Pony not recommended as the guides are careless. The distance to Cave is four miles.
The trip from Jammu onwards to the next destination was by transport or private taxi. They opted for Route 3, mainly because of the helicopter ride and it was a shorter distance on foot. Past Panchtarni, the trek to the Holy caves of Amarnath was four miles.
The Meadowlands of Panchtarni were at a height of 12,000 feet. This last camp before the caves had cold winds which caused the skin to crack. Hence it was recommended that travelers carry cold cream /Vaseline to protect their skin. Some travelers were also affected by a deficiency of oxygen, and further, some more may feel nauseated leading to a feeling of vomiting. Dry fruits like Allu Bukhara, sour and sweet eatables like lemon, were useful to control these symptoms. The route to Mahagunas is full of rivulets, waterfalls, and springs, which calls the skin to crack
Panchtarni is a very beautiful place at the foot of the Bhairav Mountains. Five rivers flow here. It is said that the five rivers originated from Lord Shiva’s Jatayu, Hairs
The Holy Cave of Shri Amarnath is only four miles from Panchtarni. As there is no place to stay there, the pilgrims started in the early hours of the morning after their stay at Panchtarni. Some pilgrims took a bath at Amravati near the holy cave to become pious before going for Darshan, viewing. Near the cave is a white soil known as Bhasm. It is the most beloved soil of Shivji, an incarnation of a God. There are two smaller Shivlings, one of “Mata Parvati and the other of Shree Ganesh”. Trekkers had to return to the base camp of Panchtarni the same day. From here on, they retrace their path to Jammu or Srinagar.
***
On an Indian Airlines plane, they began their journey. The distance from New Delhi to Jammu on this thirty-one-seater Fokker airplane took forty-five minutes. Abhay, Arushi and Arjun were on a pilgrimage to the holy shrine located in the Amarnath Caves in Kashmir
On reaching Pahalgam, they realized why Kashmir, is considered to be the paradise of this world. This small town situated on the banks of the Lidder River is surrounded by high mountains. They checked into a hotel, in two separate bedrooms, one for Abhay and the other for Arushi and Arjun. They spent the day at this scenic location and had a picnic next to a rivulet that ran over stone pebbles. The flight the next day on the helicopter was a sight to see. They started by flying over Pahalgam, Aru Valley and then glided through the glacier of Sheshnag and finally landed at Panchtarni. They hovered over Sheshnag, which derives its name from its Seven Peaks, resembling the heads of the mythical snake. The journey through Sheshnag followed steep inclines on the right bank of a cascading stream and wild scenery untouched by civilization. Further on, there were the blue waters of Sheshnag lake and the glaciers beyond it.
They, more or less rested that day in Panchtarni. The reason was that the next day’s foot trek to the caves was four miles each way. Both Arushi and Arjun decided to walk it. Abhay had suggested that they take the palanquin, but the two wanted to be brave. That settled, Arushi packed a picnic basket with the help of the chai shop, a local restaurant. They then began their trek. They had made, while still in the US, a visit to Dick’s Sporting Goods Store where they outfitted themselves with proper apparel, footwear, water bottle, backpacks, and high-energy snacks.
Not being accustomed to trekking, they did not know how to pace themselves. There was a sizable crowd and they melded in it. They started with gusto but soon found out that they needed to conserve energy. Abhay led the way with the two following close behind. They navigated the first two and a half miles when the two began to feel a little tired. They started to take breaks, which delayed them.
Once, Arushi stumbled on a rock, and it was lucky that Abhay was just next to her. He propped her up and the next thing she knew she was in Abhay’s strong arms. An electric shock swept through both of them. This was the first time when the two had such a delicious embrace. It was a canary moment, a eureka moment. The remaining one and a half miles were like magic. She experienced a feeling of oneness and he could not forget her fragrance, both figuratively, and in reality. Surprisingly, Arjun stood his ground. Also, surprising was Arushi’s spirits after the experience. She enjoyed the embrace, relishing it.
The cave itself is humongous. It has a Shivling, lingam of the God Shiva, in frozen snow and is called Baba Barfani, God in ice. The entrance has a sign mounted atop a gate that says, Welcome to the Holy Cave. Since it’s a Shiva shrine, the members of the crowd chant Jai Bhole, Bum bum Bhole, On Namah Shivsay, different names for Lord Shiva. Some priests perform puja, worship of God, throughout the day. They worshipped the Shiva deity and offered sweets which they had bought at the Sweet Meat Shop. For the return journey, they hired a palanquin for Arjun and Arushi and returned to Panchtarni. The following day, they returned to Pahalgam on the helicopter and finally to Srinagar.
***
It was the wee hours of the morning. The houseboat caretaker arrived and bustled around in the kitchen. Lazily, the three awoke and came down to the living room. Today, they were to go to Arushi’s old house in Srinagar. Though Arushi had some trepidation, she did not feel insecure. She had not one, but two men escorting her. She felt empowered, Abhay, her protector, was with her. The previous day's contact was like the smell of roses in full bloom. It seemed like this feeling was safe and abiding. Arushi relished every moment.
Their journey by taxi took about forty-five minutes. Arushi would not have recognized the structure as it was redone after the fire, but the flowers were telltale. The white gardenias, the red and white roses, and the marigolds were laid out exactly as she remembered. Abhay suggested that they knock on the door and visit with the new inhabitants of the house. At first hesitant, with Arjun chiming in, they went to the door and rang the bell. After the usual wait, a lady answered the door.
“My name is Arushi" and pointing towards the two, she said, "this is Abhay and Arjun." "I used to live at this location in November of 1990. We are on a pilgrimage and a holiday trip of Kashmir."
Before she could go further, the lady beckoned them to come in. Very soon, they were seated on the sofa and the whole household was present. The new owners were Abdul Rehman and Noorjehan who had two children named Farooque and Husna. Abdul Rehman was a college professor. They spent about an hour chitchatting, the Rehman’s being apologetic and sympathetic towards Arushi. After leaving the house, Arushi was glad that they went in. Not all Muslims are bad. She had just one more demon to conquer.
Navigating the lanes, which to her surprise she still remembered, she stood in front of the House of Horrors. The house of infamy, where her chastity was broken, her body. pillaged, and where she had suffered multiple injuries to her psyche. There was a provision store in the vicinity. She went there and bought a box of matches. She then came back to the house and pulled out from her pocketbook what seemed like a bra. She went to the walls of the building where there was an alcove. She crumpled the bra and placed it in the alcove. She then lit a match and set the bra on fire. Soon it was ablaze and reduced to ashes. Before going down with Major Rawat three years ago, she had extricated this bra from a hiding place. She had kept it as protection/symbolic protection from men in the future. That her breasts would have a barrier from the raunchiness of an attacker.
Spirits uplifted, she buried the hatchet. She had forgiven Rashid, and in that forgiveness, she felt liberated. Now she was ready to strike up a relationship with Abhay. Soon she was standing in front of him, and in the next moment, she embraced him with no reservations. Her heart raced like it gunned for the pole position at Indianapolis, a canary was singing. She pulled Arjun in and the threesome was now singing a canary’s song. There were three tweets that day, instead of one, one for Arushi and one each for Arjun and Abhay and finally, one chorus for all three of them. An effigy had fallen. It was of Ravana and she was not trapped, instead, she watched from afar. Arushi had tamed her insecurities and in so doing, in paradise, which is Kashmir, they had created a paradise of their own.
That night, after Arjun had gone to bed, the two decided to sit out in the open in the shikara attached to the houseboat, on the waters of Dal Lake. The turbulence that inflicted Arushi became a thing of the past. She felt so moored to Abhay that she asked him if she could lie down on his lap. Abhay said yes. Soon she looked in his eyes and told all, about every atrocity committed to her body and why she could not tolerate even the slightest of cold water. She told how Rashid had shaken her, pulled back her head till it hurt badly, the slaps and the dousing of cold water to her naked body. She cried hysterically as she narrated. It all came out in a torrential downpour depicting her gruesome horror. Abhay drew closer felt all her wounds. He gently stroked her hair and then bent down. When Arushi nudged him, he kissed her lips. She took one of his hands and placed it on her breast. By now Abhay had garlanded her in a close embrace, pressed her body to him.
Her sobbing had subsided and out came a toothy smile. Arushi had obtained her Nirvana. This was a moment of unison, a sublime moment, a canary moment. The two were locked never to be separated. They made love under the eyes of the watchful full moon whose silvery sparkle blessed them. Arushi Trikha’s burden evaporated into Arushi Mathur’s splendor. Her demons conquered, a family emerged.
Curtis A. Bass (Curtisstories.blog) is a writer of short stories from the American south. He writes in a variety of genres such as science fiction, horror, mystery and young adult. He has been published in several online and print journals. When not writing he prefers to stay active ballroom dancing or downhill skiing. He is currently working on his first novel. |
Inna Gadda Da Vida
A Fractured Fairy Tale
***
So, his followers have a book that says he made the entire universe in six days. Nope. In usual YHWH fashion he dicked around for five days and then pulled an all nighter. That’s why he did such a shitty job. I mean platypuses and penguins? Give me a break. This universe has amateur night written all over it. And if you’re a cosmologist, yes this is the first iteration. It definitely could use a reset. His followers say there was a reset a few thousand years ago with a big flood, but no, that was a local thing. It was just a big oops on YHWH’s part, anyway. He’s like a bull in a china shop. No finesse. But I digress.
***
Anyway, he created everything. And as his book says, he created man, “male and female created he them.” Basically, they were golems. Look it up. He called them Adam and Lilith. Then he created a ton of animals and told Adam he could name them. So Adam named them Harry, Joe, Eugene and so on until YHWH stopped him and explained that’s not what he meant. Adam wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. So he started over, “dog, cat, fly”… No one seemed to care what Lilith wanted to call them. Her job was to tidy up the garden and sweep out the elephant shit. “Emu, lion, blue-tailed skink”…
***
YHWH liked to come to the garden and sit with them in the evening's cool. He’s always had a problem with the heat. Fortunately, it never bothered me. He liked things as they were. He’d sit, Lilith would fawn over him and Adam was still naming animals… “mosquito, mouse, wombat”.
***
Things were slow in the ether one day, so I decided to drop by Eden to see how things were going. I caught up with Lilith carrying a huge load of elephant shit down to the river.
“Let me help with that,” I said.
“Thanks.” In the background I heard… “monkey, cobra, antelope”…
“You know, it would be easier if you wove some of those grasses into a basket, or we could take some poles and make a travois. Something like that would work better.” She just looked at me blankly. Seeing as she was buck naked, I figured out they hadn’t gotten around to inventing things yet. So, I went more basic.
“How about fire to cook your food, or for warmth?”
“It is always warm here. What is cook? Our food is the fruit, berries and nuts all around us.”
“How about tools to help you do your work?”
“We do no work. Adam names the animals and I clean up. That is how it has always been.”
This was worse than I’d thought. YHWH was keeping them ignorant. Buck naked, no tools, no art, totally vegan, not a lean steak in sight. It was just wrong. These talking animals had so much potential. It was just a waste.
“Hey, Lilith,” Adam interrupted us. “I gotta go to the beach. YHWH wants me to name all the animals in the ocean. I’ll be back in a few days. By the way, I just named gorilla and he shit all over the place. Be sure to clean it up.”
Okay, I thought. This is just ridiculous.
“Lilith, girl. I need to show you something,” I said. “Let’s go to the center of the garden.”
When we got there, Lilith shouted, “Shit! That freaking gorilla got crap on everything. It will take me all day to clean this up.”
“Not to worry,” I said. I pulled a little power from my center, waved my hands and the gorilla crap all faded away.
“You can do that?” she cried incredulously.
“No prob,” I bragged.
“Show me how.”
“Uh, I can’t. I can do it, you can’t.”
“Oh.”
“But come with me over here. We have these two trees. The tree of knowledge and the tree of life,” I showed her.
“Yeah, YHWH said not to mess with them. They’re deadly.”
“If YHWH said you could eat whatever you wanted, then why would he put something deadly right here in the middle of the garden?”
“I don’t know. YHWH moves in mysterious ways?”
I walked up to the tree of knowledge and picked off a piece of knowledge fruit. It was golden, luscious and ripe. “Here, taste this. I think you’ll see things differently.”
She took a bite, golden juice dribbling down her chin. She giggled and wiped it off. In a few more bites it was all gone. She looked around with her eyes wide. “What a fool I’ve been. I’ve been working like a slave here while Adam sits around on his fat ass and does nothing but call out stupid words like kangaroo or boomslang or tell me to fetch him a bunch of grapes. And YHWH just watches and laughs. I’ve been so stupid.”
“Not stupid. Just ignorant. There is a difference.”
“Just wait till that jerk gets back. He’s going to get a piece of my mind.”
Not so good for Adam, but maybe Lilith could kick start humanity toward its destiny.
***
When Adam got back, Lilith was waiting for him. She uttered for the first time the four words that have forever struck fear in the heart of every man — “we need to talk.” It didn’t begin well, never got better and ended worse. “Fuck this shit. I’ve had it with you, YHWH and the whole garden thing. I’m packing my fig leaf and leaving. The Nephilim are having a rave over in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Gabriel’s my ride. I’m outta here!” was how she left.
“Fig leaf?” Adam asked.
***
Sometime later, I came upon YHWH wandering around Heaven glowering. He’s always had a hairtrigger temper and is generally cranky, but today he looked quite perturbed about something in particular, not just his general unpleasantness.
“What up, Big Guy?” I asked.
“I’ve told you don’t call me that. And I’m pissed at Lilith. That shameless hussy has gone and left Adam. He’s been moaning that he has too much work without Lilith to help him. He said she took off with Gabriel. Said she called him a sadistic son of a bitch and a dickless man. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’s been eating off the tree of knowledge. I probably made a mistake making them out of equal mud. I’ll fix it though. I’ll make Adam a new helper and I’ll make sure she knows her place.”
So he did and called her Eve.
***
Adam finally finished naming all the animals. YHWH let him skip the big lizard looking things because they weren’t going to survive anyhow. Now he could devote more of his time to laying about the garden and directing Eve in what needed doing.
***
Lilith eventually heard that Adam had a new maid, so she sneaked back to Eden for a look-see. She was not surprised. Adam was lying on a bed of leaves, hand in his lap, fondling his balls. He was getting a little thick around the waist. Eve was looking a little worse for wear, fetching him food and keeping the animal shit in the garden cleared. When Eve was out of sight of Adam, Lilith grabbed her arm and said, “Girlfriend, we need a heart to heart.”
It didn’t take her long to get Eve to the tree of knowledge and have her eat a piece. Eve, now a smart cookie in her own right, decided to bring Adam into the fold so she took him a piece of the fruit.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s knowledge.”
“Isn’t a little knowledge a dangerous thing?”
“Don’t be cute. Just eat the damn thing.”
Once both their eyes were opened they realized how empty their lives had been. They’d had no purpose, no dreams, nothing to look forward to. Now they did. Especially the sex which they explored enthusiastically. Eve remembered how Lilith had worn a grass skirt. She realized that a little near nudity was more erotic than total nudity. It’s all about the tease. So, she fashioned leaf skirts for both of them. Adam was dubious, but when Eve threatened to cut off the sex, he immediately complied.
***
All this time, YHWH had been dealing with a black hole situation over in the Andromeda galaxy. Remember this was his first shot at universe making. He wasn’t a physicist; didn’t know dark matter from Darth Vader and the galaxy was in a mess. He finally got everything back in order. He came back and just wanted a quiet evening in the garden. When he got there, no one was around.
“Where is everyone?” he wondered. Usually they ran to meet him. He wandered around until he heard giggling coming from some bushes.
“Adam, Eve. That you?” he called. There was hurried whispering and then the two crept out of the bushes, blushing and their hair in disarray. The little leaf skirt did not hide Adam’s rapidly dwindling erection.
“What’s going on here? What were you doing in there?” YHWH demanded.
“Uh, nothing,” Adam said.
“And what’s with the skirts?”
“Well, it was kinda drafty here in the garden and…”
“Bullshit!” roared the Almighty. “You’ve been eating from the tree of knowledge, haven’t you!” he accused.
Then came the first ever case of someone being thrown under the bus.
“It’s all Eve’s fault. She made me eat it,” Adam babbled. Eve’s eyes flew open wide.
“What?” she screeched. “You blame me? You’ve been happy enough to fuck all day long. I think you get a little responsibility here, too, Bucko.”
“Eve, who told you to eat from the tree of knowledge?” YHWH demanded.
For about a nanosecond she thought of ratting on Lilith but she decided she was better than Adam. There is such a thing as female solidarity. She cast about for ideas and noticed a snake walking by.
“It was the snake. Yeah, the snake. He told me to do it,” she exclaimed, pointing at the snake. YHWH whipped around and pointed his finger at the snake. Lightning came from his fingertip and suddenly the snake was on the ground, his legs turned to ash.
“What the fuck did I do?” whined the snake. YHWH pointed again, yelling “Silence!” and the snake’s tongue split in half and all he could say was “Ssssshit.”
YHWH was having an old-fashioned hissy fit.
“From this day forward the three of you will be enemies. The snake will be poison and seek to bite you wherever he finds you. Man and woman will fear him and beat his head in with clubs. Men will no longer understand women, nor women, men. I will make their minds think differently. And since you like sex so much there will be consequences. You will do it to create more people to be slaves to my whims. And you will bear them in intense pain.” He was on a roll.
“What’s Adam’s punishment?” Eve asked.
“Um, I don’t know. I’ll think of something. Maybe he has to cut off a piece of his dick and if you kick him in the balls, it’ll hurt real bad. Yeah, and he can only come once a day. Now get the hell out of my garden!”
***
So, there you have it. That’s how I helped man escape the slavery of the garden. YHWH has bumbled along a few millennia since then, fucking up one thing after another. Couldn’t even keep his son from being killed, although that was an idiotic plan from the get go. He spends a lot of time slandering me. And my name? Oh, I’ve had many names. Morning Star, Light Bringer, Prometheus. But my favorite is Lucifer.
BERT and ERNIE and THE MAN
I ordered two chili dogs and two Rolling Rock longnecks. I sucked down the first one and kept the second waiting for the food. I saw the reflection of a woman enter and walk toward me. She stopped, looked around, then sat at the stool to my left, as though she had a plan. She looked about forty. With better light, I could be more precise. Blonde bottle hair that needed some work. The bruise on the side of her face had too much heavy make-up. It was more lumpy than swollen. The large blue lens glasses hid her eyes, and the oversize Steeler’s sweatshirt hid her shape. I imagined a pretty good rack. At some earlier time in her life, she might have been called pretty, but today looked like she carried a lot more baggage than was hanging from the strap over her shoulder. She ordered a Rum and Coke, fumbled in her bag and put a lighter on the bar then went digging again for the cigs, shaking one out of a Marlboro box and put it between her lips.
I beat her hand to the lighter and flamed it. She took a drag and said, “Thanks.” I nodded and started on the dogs that had just arrived. Washing a big bite down with a pull on the bottle.
“Why are you drinking from the bottle?”
I faced her and said, “It makes a good weapon.”
She shrugged, like that made sense, and said, “You must be a tough guy.”
I nodded and said, “When needed.”
“What’s your name?”
I gave her one. “Ernie.”
“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me. My name’s Bert.”
I chuckled, “Really?”
It’s Alberta. My dad wanted a boy, so they compromised.”
“What if I call you Al?”
“I’ll kick you in the balls.”
“Okay, I won’t. So, what do you do for fun?”
“Sit around, wishing my husband would die.”
This wasn’t the first time I heard a woman with bruises say something like that. I tapped the left side of my face and said, “Did he do that?”
She nodded and said, “That’s not the worst of it.”
I shrugged and started on the dogs again. Two years ago, I met a woman whose husband used a propane torch on her. I did that one pro bono. I settled the dog with some beer and said, “Why don’t you do something about it?”
It was her turn to shrug, then she said, “I’d like to. I don’t know how, and I’m afraid.”
I looked at her glass and signaled the bartender, holding up two fingers, ordering for both of us. “What the hell, put some rat poison in his soup. Get him drunk in the car and leave it running in a closed garage. Use your imagination.” I put a fifty on the bar and let the change ride, figuring we’d have at least one more round.
“I’ve thought about a lot of ways, but I’m afraid I’ll get caught.” She looked scared, just saying that.
“If you’ve got enough evidence of continuous abuse, the worst you’d get would be a light sentence. Maybe not even that.”
She picked up the new glass and tipped it toward me before saying “Thanks,” and taking a drink. Then she said, “It’s not the law, it’s his family. They’re all crazy, and they’d get revenge in some horrible way. His brother once told me he’d chain me behind his truck and drag me down the highway.”
“Tough guy.”
“He’s a fucking bully, just like my husband. They’re all crazy.”
“Any kids?”
“I almost did, but he kicked me in the belly when I was five months. I lost that child, something happened inside, and I can’t have kids. Good thing, actually.”
I finished my beer and held up one finger. Waited until it got to me and said, “Sounds like you have a problem.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Do you have a solution?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe if you have some money, I might know a solution.”
“Know or do?”
“Let’s talk about money.”
“How much?”
“For you, three large.”
“That’s a lot of scratch.”
I tapped the side of my face again and said, “Could be a bargain. Like you said, that isn’t the worst of it. Do you have any money?”
“I’ll get some. After that prick is dead, I’ll get all the insurance money. Forty grand a legit policy we took out when we got married twelve years ago. Nothing that would be suspicious or anything.”
“I can see you’ve been thinking about this. But these things don’t work on credit.”
“I have a down payment.”
“Like what?”
She dug into her purse again and took out a small wad of tissue. Unwrapped it and handed me a diamond engagement ring. I looked at her finger which housed a narrow silver band.
She said, “That was my mother’s my asshole husband never gave me one.”
I kept my hand below the bar and turned the ring over several times, trying to assess the value.
She gripped my arm and said, “I’ll give you a bonus after.” Then dropped her hand into my lap.
I gave her back the ring and said, “That won’t be necessary; maybe we can work this out.” I was beginning to sympathize, something I keep warning myself about, but maybe it’s my way of justifying my work.
She said, how can I contact you?”
“You can’t.” I took a burner phone out of my jacket pocket. “Give me your number.” She hesitated a split second, gave me the numbers, and I punched them into the phone, then said, “Give me an address.”
She looked scared like this was maybe going too far, but finally gave it to me. “Aren’t you gonna write it down?”
“I’ll remember it. Give me some more details.” She tapped her empty glass, and we waited for a refill before she gave me all the info I needed. I asked for a picture, and she said she couldn’t stand to look at him and had none.
I looked at the money on the bar. Pushed a tenner out of that to her leaving the rest for a tip, and said, “Have another drink, I’ll be in touch,” then headed for the door.
I heard her say, “When will I hear from you?”
I ignored that and left.
I drove eleven miles to East Jeffery and got a room there at an old motel for my cat and me using fake ID’s and writing a phony plate number on the sign-in card. The clerks at places like this don’t give a shit. The only thing that bothered me was that when she came into the bar, with many empty stools, she chose to sit next to me. I need to be careful.
Over the next two days, I gathered all the information I needed and got a good look at that prick. I could see the meanness oozing out of his pores. I knew just what I’d do—easy peasy. I called her at 3 p.m. while he was still at work. I didn’t say my name, I didn’t have to. All I said was, “Do you have it?”
“The ring is that okay? Please. I’m counting on you.”
“Meet me tomorrow, same bar, same time.”
* * *
I drove around the place, checking. Everything seemed all Jake. I backed into a parking place and went inside to the same stool. Two guys at the bar, two guys at a table, different bartender. “Rolling Rock longneck.”
I saw her approach in the mirror and spun on the stool. She was so different. Hair done. Clear skin. Business suit. Striding right toward me. I opened my hands, suggesting, What gives? Then I knew instantly. The bartender’s gun at my back, the table guys, stood up with full hands.
She opened her jacket, held up her ID, and said, “FBI Agent, Bert Merriweather. Jerry Lambert, you’re under arrest. Sorry, Jerry.”
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ABHIRUP DUTTA
ANN J. BRADY
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CALEB GRANT
CARLOS A. ALMARAZ
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CHRISTOPHER CARROLL
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DAVID DESIDERIO
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DYLAN "NITE" ORR
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