Awakened

by K. G. Duncan

  Abby sat up and curled her feet under her, ready to spring away if needed. “It’s smile, smile, smile,” she said. “The old song. That’s how it goes. My momma used to sing it for me.”

  “That’s right!” The man hopped and then plopped his butt right on the ground and grabbed both his ankles, pulling them over his knees to sit Indian style. Well, he kind of looked more like a Buddha in a lotus flower position.

  Abby studied the man more carefully now. He was African-American. His hair was immaculately braided into corn rows and hung down past his shoulders, streaks of grey at his temples and in the goatee beard around his mouth. He was wearing what once was a very nice suit—something you might wear to a wedding or if you worked in a fancy restaurant—but it was now a little frayed around the edges and badly in need of a wash. His pants weren’t quite long enough, revealing the smooth, bare skin of his calves and around his ankles. He wasn’t wearing any socks, and the man was incongruously wearing the dirtiest pair of red converse sneakers Abby had ever seen. One big toe stuck out of a flap that had come undone. His toenail was long, curved and yellow. Pedicures were not a top priority, apparently.

  “Is this your home?” Abby asked politely. “I didn’t mean to intrude, it’s just… just that I didn’t have nowhere else to go.” She looked around the clearing briefly, then smiled. “It’s quite nice. Like your very own sanctuary.” She lifted up the blanket she had been lying on and began folding it neatly.

  “Sanctuary. I like that.” The man said and continued to smile. He gestured at Abby fussing over the blanket. “You don’t need to pay that no never mind. I don’t get many visitors. Intruders, yes. Now that’s a different story. But visitors like you, young lady, no… we don’t get too many around here.”

  “Intruders?” Abby asked, as a trickle of fear started tingling down her spine. She was suddenly aware of movement over by the dumpster. The man glanced that way, and his smile vanished.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “The predators come out at night. Of the two-legged variety. Mostly young punks and rump-chumps all hopped up on junk. Mindless monsters. No respect for territorial boundaries. Thieves mostly. And worse.” He turned back to look at Abby, and his smile returned. There was a long, awkward silence.

  He sucked in a long breath, then continued. “That’s why folks like me sleep in the daytime. It’s safer when the sun shines and there are more people out and about. But in the night, when the shadows deepen—that’s when the monsters come out.” He paused to smile again at the notable tension in the frame of the girl in front of him. “But don’t you fret, now, it is my pleasure to meet you.” The smile broadened on his lips, he raised his eyebrows and stuck out his hand.

  “The pleasure is all mine. Much obliged,” Abby replied quickly. She hesitated to ponder the wisdom of taking his hand into her own—she knew that the contact might lead—no, most definitely would lead to access into his mind and very being. Especially this close to the change, the dragon would surely come forth and sweep open wide the Folds within this man. Abby would not be able to stop it. The visions might very well overwhelm her. Still… it was also the best way to know right away if he was a normal person or some kind of psychotic nut-job.

  She made up her mind in a moment and grasped his hand in a shake. “I don’t know where my manners went!” She sputtered as she shook his hand vigorously—and that was precisely when the flood of images came jolting through her in an instant—wave after clairvoyant wave, blurry and non-distinct at first, like fractured warped slides in a kaleidoscope. Then they slowed down and took shape and form.

  And the slide show began: Images flashed ephemerally in her mind, lingering just long enough for recognition before vanishing, only to be replaced by another. First, there appeared a brief scene of a slightly younger, cleaner version of the man hovering over a table in a crowded, fancy restaurant. Green-coated waiters with shiny gold buttons on their coats were bustling about. “Welcome to the Commanders Palace,” the man was pronouncing, his smile beaming at a large group of seated people as he leaned in to pour a rich brown liquid from the kettle in his hand to their empty cups. “The House specialty—Duck Fat Lattes!” He announced, then leaned down to a child beneath his arm, who was watching wide-eyed as the steaming, thick liquid filled her cup. He winked at her, then whispered, “Better than hot chocolate. Try it, you might like it!”

  His smile lit up the room, and then the picture warped and bent, the smile still lingered, but now it was plastered across the face of a little boy—and A.B. knew instantly that it was the child form of this man, a much older memory. He was dressed in a crisply pressed blue suit, vaguely military in its cut with silver tassels gleaming on its shoulders and fancy silver stitching down its tapered front. There was music playing—some early 2oth century jazzy bit of Americana—and the boy was dancing a soft shoe on top of a crate in the middle of the street. It looked like Bourbon Street in downtown New Orleans, and a large crowd had gathered. The boy jigged and ambled, slapping his feet down perfectly in time to the music. He was fluid and graceful, and the crowd stood mesmerized. The boy’s smiling face was the cutest thing A.B. had ever seen…

  Then the scene whipped away to a darkened room. A switching stick raised above the gloomy interior of a run-down brownstone apartment. “You like giving away your tips?” The voice of the woman who was holding the stick. Her face was barely visible in the light coming from the next room. She was thirty-something, but looking more worn for wear, her once pretty face ravaged by drink or something worse. She leered angrily, her eyes hard and black, darker than her face, and her very white teeth almost glowing in the gloom as she snarled. The stick descended and cracked against the boy’s bare back. A.B. heard the whimper of the boy and recoiled as if she were being hit herself. She could see the glint of silver tassels on the suit jacket draped over a chair next to the cringing boy.

  “You think that girl likes your little black ass?” The voice again, and the stick descending once, twice more, viciously. “What you gonna eat tonight now that she got your money? You think she worth the skin off your back?” And then a blur as the stick rose and fell again and again, the sound of it thwacking against the boy’s flesh sickening A.B., who started to cry, murmuring for the woman to please, make it stop.

  And then it was gone, and she saw the boy who was once again a man, sitting on the cobbled stone pavement of an alleyway, his back against a wall. She could see through his eyes, the swollen ankles around his feet. The needles that lay next to his feet. He sat, unmoving, watching a fly crawl across the toe of his shoe, but he was warm and comfortable, feeling the ripples of time roll over and through him, all peaceful and painless.

  Then another blur of light and color. First there was an old woman, black and round-faced, smiling the same smile as the man—his mother? No, a grandmother, much older but beloved and better known by the man. She stood in a beautiful white dress on a little hillock surrounded by swamp land, beneath a tree draped with the silvery green strands of Spanish moss. She turned her face and looked back, smiling. By some trick of the light, the moss strewn branches of the tree cast a shadow over her face—a criss-crossing pattern like a spider’s web… something vague but instantly familiar suddenly washed over Abby’s senses like a warm wave. The old woman raised her hand and waved, her eyes crinkling with the spark of some secret meaning. Then the image was gone.

  Before Abby could even think, suddenly, there was a white man, big bellied, all pink around his jowly cheeks. He sputtered all flustered, pacing up and down in a pin-striped suit that might be two sizes too small. “I can’t have it like this, Tree!” He stuttered and lifted his finger in admonishment. “You ain’t n-n-never gonna come clean. Y-y-you just a sad old junkie. I can’t have you w-w-working for me!” He reached over and ripped the pinned name tag from the man’s coat collar. He held up the tag, which was clearly labelled “Old Town New Orleans – Garden District Tours,” and in clear, elegant cursiv
e script, the name “Tree” was penned across the front of the badge. “Look at you! Showing up like this? Y-y-you’re an embarrassment. I’ve got no other choice, Tree. G-g-go get some help from someb-b-body else. I’m done with you.” And then the man stomped away.

  Then a blur of images—birds flitting in a park, a man playing a slide trombone, “Tree” ambling along an empty street at night in a light rain, his bright red converse sneakers weirdly out of place, a slight hitch in his step. Another blur. Then, a small crowd of onlookers and a tumultuous scene—the police pointing guns at him. Tree’s head against the pavement in a pool of blood. In a flash, the image was gone, replaced by his face, close up, leaning in and looking directly at Abby beneath the orange lights of a large parking lot. He was holding a baseball bat, and then he winked and grinned before saying, “You know I would never hurt a fly. Just don’t tell the hobgoblins that!” His beautiful smile lit up the dim twilight below laughing brown eyes.

  And just like that, the slide show was over. Abby snapped her eyes open. The man was watching her intently, and she was still shaking his hand. She had no idea how long they had been doing that, and suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her hand back in to cross her arms and nervously rub her elbows.

  “Normally I don’t like touching people.” She chuckled humorlessly, before adding, “Your name is Tree.” It was a quiet statement, not a question.

  The man laughed and ran both his hands through his hair. “Well, now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in quite a while. Most folks call me “Stump” around here. I’m afraid I’m just a shadow of my former self.”

  “Stump.” Abby repeated. “I do believe I understand that.”

  “I bet you do,” the man chuckled then his face suddenly grew somber. “You got to keep that under wraps, little lady. You got the gift of sight, terribly strong. Can’t be going all willy-nilly.”

  Abby looked at him, startled and slightly alarmed. “Could you see what I was seeing?” She swallowed heavily and suddenly her mind was full of a hundred questions. She stammered. “I-I don’t know how to keep it under wraps. C-could you see inside my mind? Do you…”

  “Now, first things first,” the man interrupted, sat back and smiled his beautiful smile. He stretched out his hand, “We didn’t finish our introductions. You can call me Stump. May I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?”

  Abby hesitated, looking intently at the face of the strange man, unsure for a few moments before she took his hand. She grasped it, waiting for the surge of expected images, and… Nothing happened. Slowly a smile spread across her lips, a wide grin to match that of the man, and she shook his hand firmly, but politely, and this time only once. “My name is Aurora Borealis Rubideaux. But most folks call me A.B. or Abby cuz that’s a lot shorter.” She released his hand and continued to grin at him.

  Stump chuckled and patted his legs, “Miss Aurora Borealis Rubideaux, if that ain’t a mouthful!”

  “Yessir.” Abby wiped her nose and glanced away.

  “Well, Abby. It is my honor to make your acquaintance.” He spoke formally and sat up straighter. Abby laughed suddenly, free and easy, rubbed her legs and sat up straighter, too.

  “Welcome to my sanctuary,” he continued as he gestured dramatically around the clearing. “My very own Superdome paradise in the beautiful city of New Orleans!” He pronounced New Orleans like “nahhhh-lens.” Abby giggled and bowed dramatically with one hand behind her back.

  Stump laughed and then continued, “And you are welcome to spend the night here. Please, have no fear. I shall protect you from the creatures of the night. Those hooligans and hobgoblins won’t bother us in my… in our sanctuary.” He said this last word with relish, pulled a baseball bat out of a large pile, patted it twice and smiled broadly once again.

  “Stump?” Abby watched as he set the bat down next to him. “I think I would rather call you Tree.” Stump tensed slightly, and Abby quickly added, “That is only if it’s all right with you, of course.”

  “If it’s all right with me,” Stump repeated, almost wistfully. He glanced away from Abby and stared off into the distance for several moments. Abby glanced down as his hand absently fondled the baseball bat at his side, twisting it over and over. The sound of the wood rotating and thrumming against the ground was disconcertingly loud. Then he continued.

  “My name once upon a time used to be Tree, but they took my permits, and they took my license, so now I don’t do no more tours round the Garden District and what not.” His eyes flicked back to pin Abby in her place. She tensed until the black dots of his pupils softened slightly, and the hint of a smile returned to his gaze. Abby realized she had been holding her breath and slowly, she remembered to breathe once again.

  “Yes indeed, Miss Rubideaux,” he continued. “They cut a man off cuz he likes to take a drink every now and then. Or occasionally appease his deeper demons.” He absently scratched at his arm, and Abby imagined the track marks that must be hidden beneath the sleeve of his coat. Or at least she imagined they were still there and looked very much like they did on the TV that one time she stayed up with Henry to watch an episode of CSI. How long ago was that? Six months? A year? She was suddenly aware of the prolonged silence and snapped her eyes back to meet Stump’s. He was watching her intently, but the kindness and the warmth had crept back into them.

  He smiled before speaking again. “They cut me down, yessir. They surely did. With a lot of assistance from my own self, of course. That is usually the way of it. Nothing happens completely by itself. So, it’s Stump now.”

  Abby found herself suddenly relaxed. She didn’t know why or how, but she knew that she could trust this man. She couldn’t bother to even explain it to anyone who might be concerned, but she just knew with an irrevocable certainty that this man was good to his core. A true ally. A friend. Baseball bats and dodgy junky habits and all. And more importantly, she needed friends right about now.

  She suddenly thought of Olivia, left behind at the chicken restaurant, the chaos of her flight and a sudden pang of anxiety knotted in her stomach. She hoped that Olivia wasn’t currently scouring the streets of New Orleans looking for her. Or even worse, that she was somehow in trouble because of her own actions.

  She looked again into the eyes of Stump, and relaxed. Olivia would be fine. And Olivia would not stop until she found her. She suddenly had an itch behind her ear, and as she scratched it, she felt the course, dry scaling that had built up there. She was reminded that the “change” was imminent. And she would need to find a place of privacy soon.

  “So, Stump. I need to ask you a few things.” Abby took a deep breath and steeled herself before continuing. Stump sat patiently, like a Buddha, cross-legged and smiling. She looked directly in his eye. “Just then, a few moments back, when I first took your hand. Could you feel me in your mind?”

  “Yes.” His response was without hesitation. She flicked her glance away nervously but returned her gaze almost immediately. Stump was still smiling.

  She continued, “How did you know what I was doing? I mean, I ain’t never met nobody who could feel me like you did.”

  “Well now,” Stump actually chuckled. “You never met my Granny Jane then, did ya?” He laughed again, his body shaking with mirth for several long moments before, at last, subsiding. “So, listen,” and he was suddenly sober and solemn. “You got the second sight, and that ain’t no big thing. Lots of folks have the gift. It tends to run in certain families. I know I got it from my momma, and she from her momma before her, and so on, and so on. But there is something else you want to tell me about yourself, isn’t there? Not everything is what it seems. And I certainly know a little bit about that.” He laughed again, and Abby laughed, too. There was something irresistibly genuine and charming about his manner.

  Abby felt the itch behind her ears again, glanced down at the fingernails on her right hand and noticed the plaque build-up there, opa
que and crusty, with claw-like tapering at the ends of her nails. It warped and changed back to normal right before her eyes. She quickly buried her hands in the folds of her dress. It was almost like the dragon was speaking to her directly. She decided in that moment to spill the whole can of beans. It was worth a shot, anyway.

  “Well, yes, in fact,” she began slowly, still holding his gaze. “I do have something more to tell you. I just don’t know where to begin.”

  “Why don’t you try at the beginning?”

  “Well, gosh,” Abby chuckled and rubbed her hands together. “If I knew where the beginning was, I guess that would be easy!” She paused and giggled again, until she noticed that Stump was patiently sitting across from her, waiting.

  She took a big breath, and then it all rushed out at once. “I’ve got this dragon that lives inside of me, and I guess it’s always been there, only I didn’t really know it until I got sucked up into a giant tornado, and everybody was really worried about me, but I just couldn’t explain to them clearly that I was fine—really fine and that in fact, everything was so beautiful and made perfect sense, only I couldn’t explain it without sounding plum crazy, because while I was up in that tornado, which really wasn’t a tornado but a state of mind—a kind of “dragon state of mind,” and it was then that I realized that time isn’t really what it seems to be and that you can be anywhere and everywhere all at once, and oh yeah! I almost forgot, when I get into my dragon mind, I can kind of see into people’s minds—er, or more like I can see their lives kind of happening all at once, and it’s like everything that happened to them in the past and whatever is the big thing happening in their lives right now and then everything else that will or might happen to them in their future because it’s all really like a giant fold of cloth—the cloth of consciousness! And it’s layer after layer that just contains everything about them, and when I go there I can feel the truth of it and know that it’s no lie and that I’m not crazy at all but something else, that’s really for sure, but I can’t really tell them what it is because most folks are just scared or can’t even understand what it is that I am experiencing cuz I guess you kind of really just have to be there to know what I mean. You know?”