The Poe Consequence

by Keith Steinbaum

  “Because he told me and my grandma that he was gonna quit drinking and he lied. He told Veronica, too. I found the bottle in the trash and I didn’t want him to know.”

  “You afraid to bust him with it? Think he might hurt you?”

  “No!” Seth shook his head rapidly back and forth. “He’s not that way!”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Face said. He slid the bottle out from the pillow. “You still want this?” he asked. He watched as the kid stared at the bottle, looking unsure what to do. Face lobbed it in the same spot he had thrown the magazine. Seth hurried over to grab it and returned to the couch.

  “What do you want it so fuckin’ bad for?” Face asked.

  “To show my grandma.”

  “Gonna snitch on him, man? You sure you wanna do that?”

  “Why not? He always tells me when I do something wrong. He doesn’t have the right to lie to me like that.”

  “Veronica don’t drink and she don’t like liars,” Face said. “She ain’t gonna like knowin’ your uncle’s pullin’ shit behind her back.”

  “I guess not,” Seth answered, shrugging his shoulders. “But she also keeps secrets from me. She never told me about you staying here.” Seth looked away. “She seemed like someone I could trust.”

  “Give her a fuckin’ break, Seth,” Face muttered. “Look at the way you were afraid to come in here. How long did it take before you finally sat on the fuckin’ couch? You think if Veronica had asked you ‘bout me you would’ve been cool about it? Whatever she was hidin’ from you was to help me, but also not to hurt you. You understand?”

  Seth nodded his head.

  “Your uncle, too, man. He did me and Veronica a big fuckin’ favor. If he’s lyin’ about the drinkin’ that ain’t cool, but I ain’t gonna give him shit ‘cause of what he done for us.”

  Seth gave a small laugh.

  “What’s so funny, man?” Face asked.

  “I’ve never met anyone who swears as much as you.”

  Face smiled at the kid. “No shit?”

  They both laughed. Face felt a sharp pain and grabbed the back of his shoulder with his opposite hand. Seth grew silent immediately. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Face gnashed his teeth and took several small breaths before he answered. “I’m all right.”

  “What happened to you?” Seth asked.

  “Some asshole shot at me as I was drivin’. Can you believe that shit?”

  “Yeah,” he replied in a soft voice. “I can believe it.”

  Face’s cell phone suddenly rang. “It’s Veronica,” he said.

  “What time you gonna be here?” he asked her.

  “I need another couple of hours,” she said. “I’m still at work. Then I have to go to my apartment. After that I’ll go to the motel down the street and get us a room.”

  “I’ll try to figure somethin’ out, Veronica,” he told her. “I know it’s a lot of money.”

  “You don’t have to go, Alex.”

  Face looked up and saw Seth approaching him. “What?” he asked him.

  “Is someone in the room?” Face heard Veronica ask.

  “I don’t want you to leave,” Seth told him. “You’re not well enough.”

  Face stared for several moments into the eyes of the little huero. “You sure, Seth?” he asked, smiling.

  Seth reached out for Face’s phone and took it from his hand. “Hi Veronica,” he said. “It’s Seth.”

  Face heard Veronica’s surprised response. “Seth?”

  “You don’t have to go to a motel, Veronica. I want you and Alex to stay here until he’s all right…yeah, I’m sure…you’re welcome, it’s okay…no, Uncle Kevin doesn’t know yet…Yeah, I remember…okay, I’ll see you later.”

  Seth handed the phone back to Face. “I better start doing my homework,” he said. “Veronica’s going to test me tomorrow.”

  Seth grabbed his magazine and bottle off the couch, but as he strode toward the door he stopped, turned around, and walked back to the bed. “Here, Alex,” he said, handing him the magazine. “You can keep it for now.”

  Face watched and waited until the kid reached the door. “Hey, Seth,” he called out.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Face stared at the closed door for several moments, confident in his conclusion that Seth had nothing to do with the heart attacks.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Kevin sat on the couch with Veronica, fascinated by the contradictory scene of a Latino gang member laughing and talking trash with Seth as they competed in a video game. He reflected on the irony of his nephew sitting a few feet from an Alvarado Street Diablo, enjoying himself to the fullest, when his recent past would have considered the present moment to be an impossibility. But in the three days since Seth first visited Alex in his room, logic had been turned on its head and the two of them seemed inseparable. Kevin grew melancholy for a moment, recognizing that Alex would soon be returning to a life of gangs and violence. We may never see him again after this.

  “Looks like these guys will be busy for a while,” he said to Veronica. “I’ve delayed looking through Warren’s last few boxes long enough. Care to help me?”

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Anything of mine in there?” Seth asked.

  “I’ll let you know when I open them,” Kevin told him. “The only thing I know for sure is that two of the boxes are filled with your dad’s old books.”

  Veronica helped Kevin carry the five sealed containers from the closet into his office.

  “I wasn’t ready to open the last of my brother’s things,” he said. “Especially the books. They were his heart and soul.”

  “But you’re ready now?”

  “I have to do it sometime, right?” Kevin smiled. “I’ll save the books for last, though.”

  Close to an hour later, after excavating, among other things, a blender, a toaster, a paper shredder, several candlesticks, Tupperware containers, three rechargeable flashlights, two cordless telephones, five toner cartridge boxes, two unopened jigsaw puzzles, a miniature globe, three snorkel masks, two pair of fins, an electric pencil sharpener, and a flattened basketball, Kevin and Veronica stared at the remaining two boxes marked, ‘BOOKS’.

  “Were these Warren’s personal books or the ones he taught with?” Veronica asked.

  “Some of both, I imagine,” Kevin said. “There’s no way these two boxes were the only ones he owned. Warren read a lot. I’m sure many of the books were left at school, but that’s okay. That’s where they should be.”

  Kevin sliced through the tape on the first box. When he pulled the side flaps back, a collection of various sized books were revealed in both hard-covered and paperback variety. He grabbed the top two and read the titles aloud. “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame…Moby Dick.” Thumbing through some pages, he said, “Warren loved the classics. In his single days he used to seduce the ladies by tossing out flowery quotations.” Chuckling, he added, “Maybe he just read them for the pick-up lines.”

  Kevin counted a total of twenty-three books in the first box, all signifying the types of authors and poets one would expect to find from an English professor. He extracted classic stories by Twain, Austen, Steinbeck, Wilde, and Hemingway as well as poetry books by Browning, Frost, Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, and Wordsworth.

  “I can’t believe there’s no Edgar Allan Poe books,” Kevin said. “He was Warren’s favorite writer. Everybody knew it. His students used to call him, ‘Professor Poemer,’ because he’d quote the guy all the time and hold special classes just for him.”

  “Maybe you’ll find some in the other box,” Veronica said.

  “I’ll be shocked if I don’t,” Kevin replied, sliding the knife.

  “Did you find my Ryan Sheckler shirt? I lost it when I moved here.”

  Kevin looked up to find Seth and Alex standing in the doorway.

  “Sorry, Seth, just a lot of odds and ends that were packed away. An
d these books.”

  “So who won?” Veronica asked.

  Seth tilted his head toward Alex. Nodding his head and flashing a big smile, Alex placed his hand on Seth’s shoulder. “I’m the man, Seth. Don’t fu.. don’t mess with the man.”

  Veronica laughed and clapped her hands. “What do you think of that, Kevin? Somebody finally defeated the champ.”

  Kevin didn’t respond. Reading to himself from a black, hard-covered book, he fell momentarily silent from the discovery he held in his hands.

  “Who wrote that one?” Veronica asked.

  “You were right, Veronica,” he said. “I found a Poe book. But there’s something else here I wasn’t expecting.” He held the time-beaten paper up for everyone to see. “It’s a poem my father wrote. It was dedicated to a friend of his from the war who got killed in a hold-up. I remember Warren telling me about it, that he’d found it stuffed inside one of his Poe books.” Kevin slowly nodded his head. “Right here at “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

  “My dad memorized that whole story,” Seth said, sorrow in his voice. “He used to go around reciting lines all the time.”

  Kevin looked at Veronica. “See, I told you. He never missed a chance.”

  “I’d like to hear your father’s poem, Kevin,” Veronica said. “Would you read it?”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s pretty much a downer.”

  “I don’t know much about your father,” she replied. “I’m interested.”

  Appearing unsteady, Alex seemed to stagger into the room before sitting on a chair.

  “Are you all right?” Veronica asked. “Your face looks red.”

  “Just dizzy,” he mumbled. “Ain’t nothin’.”

  “I’ll read the poem later,” Kevin said.

  “Go on, man,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes. “Veronica wants to hear your old man’s poem.”

  Kevin surveyed the yellowed notebook paper for a brief moment before commencing.

  “The valiant soldier’s blood will spill

  On red-stained lands of sacrifice

  The unknown stranger…”

  From the quiet corner where Alex sat his voice was suddenly heard…“lies as still…Apart from honor’s noble price..” Kevin stopped, staring in numb disbelief as Alex continued. “Two victims of a time to kill…” Alex’s eyes narrowed, as if in a trance-like state…“Beware the heart…” His eyes opened wide… “as cold as ice.”

  At that moment, two plus two equaling five made more sense than what had just occurred. Kevin couldn’t move. His thoughts turned into a disconnect of frayed wires. His need to speak, to ask, felt crippled by a leaden tongue made heavy from the weight of shock. In the odd vacuum of Kevin’s office, Veronica’s voice filtered through the silence.

  “Alex? Where did…Kevin? I thought your father…”

  Veronica took the sheet from Kevin’s hands. He watched her as she studied the poem, looking up occasionally at her brother still sitting on the chair. Seth, who had remained standing in the doorway, entered the room and sat on the arm of the couch near Alex. Contrary to Kevin’s own emotions, Seth seemed infused with excitement over this unexplainable mystery.

  “How’d you know the words?” Seth asked, wide-eyed. “You must have seen ‘em somewhere, right?”

  Alex looked at him without offering an answer. Seth turned his attention to Kevin. “Maybe Grandpa’s poem was in a book and he never told you.” Kevin didn’t answer him either. Seth looked back at Alex. “My teacher told me sometimes we read things and they stick in our heads without us ever knowing. Then one day out of nowhere, the words just come out, like you were reading it or something. Or like when a song comes on you haven’t heard in a really long time and you know all the words.”

  “Maybe you’re on to something,” Kevin said, convinced otherwise. Placing the scattered books back into the boxes, he rose to his feet and looked at Veronica. He watched as she continued to sift through “A Victim’s Time.” Her mutual bewilderment looked obvious through the intensity of her expression. Like him, she no doubt couldn’t fathom the possibility of such a thing. Pure and simple, what Alex did was impossible.

  Veronica approached Alex with the poem in her hand. “Tell me where you saw this before,” she demanded.

  He frowned and shook his head. “No recuerdo, Veronica.”

  “You don’t remember?” she asked, a dazed expression marking her face. “How could you not…” Veronica took a deep breath. “I’m not going to forget about this,” she said, sounding shaken. “Even if Seth’s right, and you did see this somewhere, how’d you remember all the words?” She returned the poem to Kevin. “Right now, I don’t know what to think.”

  Alex’s manner seemed restrained, giving no clue as to his thinking.

  “We gonna eat soon?” Seth asked. “I’m starving.”

  “I’ll go make it now,” Kevin said. He looked at Alex. “I still don’t understand.”

  Veronica started to follow Kevin out of the room but stopped and turned to face her brother. “I’ve never seen you do anything like that in your whole life,” she told him. “It makes me feel like you’ve been hiding something from me.”

  He looked at her, saying nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Seth remained behind, still sitting next to Face. “Veronica’s mad at you.”

  “Don’t worry ‘bout her,” he replied. “She’ll be cool.”

  “I guess my teacher was right,” Seth said. “You must have seen the poem somewhere and it just kinda stuck.”

  Face liked the kid but didn’t want to talk about the poem anymore. Though he tried his best to shield his emotions, what had happened a few minutes before unnerved him. Standing in the doorway, as Kevin prepared to read, that sudden lightheadedness and surge of warmth that always preceded another vision struck him, but no image appeared. He remembered that the one other time he felt the effects but didn’t see anything occurred moments before Swat killed Seth’s father.

  The words on the paper turned into his own thoughts, delivered from his mouth as clear and natural as if speaking his name. Like the soccer ball rolling down the hill that day he first discovered his power, the lines from the poem gathered an unstoppable momentum of their own. Within a few moments, he felt normal again.

  “You know what I mean?” Seth asked.

  Face had stopped listening to Seth. “About what?”

  “About what my teacher said. That somebody could read a poem and…”

  “I don’t wanna talk ‘bout it no more, man.”

  Seth shrugged his shoulders and leaned over to look at Face’s watch. “That’s really cool. Where’d you get it?”

  Face looked down at his watch, recalling his genuine disbelief when his mother gave him the gift. “A birthday present from my mother.” Moving his left arm over to his right one in slow motion, he touched the watch with his left hand. “I’m getting’ better. I put the watch on today. Couldn’t yesterday.”

  Seth pointed to the design under the round encasing. “You got two flags in there,” he said. “The American one and the green and red one. What country is that?”

  “Mexico, man,” he answered, tilting his head in surprise. “You didn’t know?”

  Leaning back, Seth shook his head. “No, I didn’t. You’re not mad, are you?”

  “Nah, I’m not mad.”

  Face noticed Seth looking at him, as if he was thinking about something. “Qué pasa, Seth?” he asked. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I just want you to know…” he said, hesitating, “you’re the first…Mexican guy I’m friends with. The other ones…they kinda scare me sometimes.”

  Seth’s admission struck Face like a head butt. He didn’t have to ask where the kid’s fear originated, and why the scars remained big time.

  “Where I’m from, Seth, I ain’t friends with any white guys, okay? They scare the shit outta me, too.”

  Seth laughed, his eyes opening wide. “They don’t really, do they?�
�

  “Well, let’s just say I don’t trust most of ‘em. But I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout you. You’re okay. So’s your uncle. He’s been good to me. He treats my sister right, too. She seems real happy.”

  “I hope they get married,” Seth said. “I really like Veronica. I want her to stay here forever.”

  Face smiled and gave Seth a high five. “You got good taste in women, my man.”

  Seth laughed. “Thanks, Alex.”

  “So you got Mexican kids at your school?”

  “Yeah, but like I said, I’m not friends with any of them.” Seth looked away for several moments. “Sometimes they tried to pick on me but I wouldn’t let them.”

  “You fight ‘em?”

  “I had to.”

  Face balled his right fist. “You done right, Seth. Can’t let nobody diss you and get away with it.”

  “I got in trouble for fighting, but things are better now. We kinda leave each other alone. Anyway, if I get in another fight they could kick me out of school.”

  “I sucked in school, but that don’t mean learnin’ ain’t important. Look at Veronica. She worked hard and done real good for herself.”

  “Yeah, she’s really smart.”

  “Next time some shit’s about to go down,” Face said, “and you’re not sure how to deal with it, get away for a while. Find a place where you can chill by yourself and think about what you wanna do.”

  Face pushed himself up with his right arm and leaned forward. “I got a place like that,” he said, lowering his voice. “I just found it one day. My old man wanted to kick my ass. I had a feeling…no, I knew he was gonna come after me. So I snuck outta the house and kept walkin’. Didn’t think ‘bout where I was goin’. Then I saw me a street called ‘Casa Place’ that goes up and curves around so you can’t see where it ends.”

  “And you went up there?”

  “All the way to the top, man. I see a house up there on a big hill. But before you get there you got one of those see-through fences behind some bushes. You can’t hardly see it unless you’re close, you know? I bent me down a part of it and climbed over. They got a dirt trail leads to some big ‘ol trees.” Face smiled. “Can’t nobody see you inside all those leaves and branches, man. You’re like gone, you know what I mean? I like that.”