by T J Marquis
Enough.
Without thinking any further, Jon set the whiskey aside and stood. He strode through the patio doors and into the living room. Cal caught sight of him.
“Jonneee! Party time!” his friend approached but Jon kept walking. He entered the foyer and heard Cal say, “Hold up,” but kept moving. The party went on behind them as Cal followed Jon out the front door. They were a little ways down the drive when Cal managed to stop him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Where you goin’ cuz?”
“Cal,” Jon answered darkly, “I have no words. I’ve just got to get out.”
“You take something I didn’t know about?” Cal asked.
Jon grunted and started walking again.
“Okay, okay. You my dawg. We’re goin’, alright? Let’s go.” His face showed real concern. Jon assented and led his friend to the Caddy. They backed out and drove away without a goodbye.
“You sure you’re good to drive, Cal?”
“Son, I drive better like this. I’m like, technical.”
The evening had settled in, the desert bright with stars, and they drove in silence. The gate guard was still reading his book, sparing little notice as he pressed the button to open the exit gate and allow the Caddy’s egress. Soon they were on the highway, headed back to home and quiet, the best parts of Jon’s life.
It could have been that tonight was a Saturday, and partiers on the road were plentiful, or that it was the 30th, and the legend of the ticket quota was real. Or perhaps there was a silver alert for a car of the same make or this stretch of road was scheduled for a speed trap. Whatever the coincidence, it was the wrong moment for Cal to enjoy his new V8. He’d hypnotized himself with the high drone of the healthy engine, and forgotten to watch his six. The blue lights flashed, then the red, the dreaded ‘whoop-whooo’ sounded, and the night quickly plunged south.
Jon knew a part of Cal was tempted to run the race, to attempt to become that rare legend of a man who outran the cops, but he retained enough sanity to resist, and calmly slowed as he pulled onto the highway shoulder.
“It’s cool. Be cool,” he chanted.
Jon was nervous too, but at least the drugs were gone. If anyone could charm his way out of the speeding ticket and avoid a DUI, it was Cal.
The officer took his time approaching the Caddy. After long moments he strode up, right hand on the butt of his pistol, left hanging loosely at his side.
“Bit of a lead toe there, eh boy?” the officer asked. Was it condescension or amiability? Hard to tell.
“Yes sir,” Cal didn’t worry about it, maintained his posture. “New car, officer.”
“Oh we all get tempted to play, don’t we son?” the officer had a slight southern drawl. He looked up the highway casually, taking his time. “New model eh?” He scanned the car appreciatively. “Bet that cost a, ‘fat stack’,” He stressed the slang oddly, deliberately. “Is it yours?”
“Yes sir, it’s mine.”
The officer looked at Cal directly, paused a moment.
“Alright then, license and registration please.”
Cal reached to open the center console and the officer stiffened, “Nice and slow, son, nice and slow,” he cautioned. Cal complied, handed over the papers. The officer strode back to his vehicle.
After a few very long minutes, which Jon and Cal spent in tense silence, the officer returned.
“Alright, boy. The lady on the title?”
“His grand--” Jon began.
“Ain’t talkin’ to you, son. The lady, boy?” The officer’s voice had a strange edge. Jon noticed the strap was off his pistol.
“My gram, sir,” Cal confirmed.
“Huh,” the officer huffed, as if in thought. He looked away down the road again. Without looking down again he said, “Gonna need you to step out of the car.”
“Yes sir, but I…”
The officer tensed, “You hear me?”
Cal’s nerves gave at last as chemicals rushed through his body. He looked down and fumbled with the seatbelt, forgetting to answer the officer.
“What’s that boy?” the man’s voice rose. He drew his pistol, pointed it at Cal. “Hands up! Real slow!” The officer backed away. “Get out, now!” Cal moved too fast. He raised his hands against the dark interior of the car and the shot cracked the air, unmistakable. Shocked and on autopilot, he still managed to open the door, but immediately a weakness took him, and he slumped out onto the ground.
Jon never remembered actually retrieving the gun from beneath the glove box, lifting it, pointing it at the man who had just shot his friend, but he never forgot the sound it made when he pulled the trigger, like a meteor colliding with the car.
Adrenaline slowed time to a crawl, and before the car door had even finished swinging open, just as the officer was looking up from his victim, Jon let death fly. The .44 round struck the officer in the chest, the splatter of his blood merely a shadow in the darkening night, and he was laid out on his back. Jon held his aim, unable to believe, hardly realizing what he had done.
Cal and the officer coughed and gurgled.
“Leave,” Cal gasped from the ground outside the Caddy, “Run...fool. Turn th...car,” he coughed again. Jon could barely hear him. He crawled hastily into the driver’s seat to look down at his friend. The bullet wound was in Cal’s neck.
“Cal, I gotta get you some help,”
Cal spat a bloody chuckle, “You shot ‘im.”
“Cal,” Jon couldn’t move.
His friend got one yell out, “Run! Tell Gram, ‘f y...cn…” he trailed off, spluttering.
Panic took Jon. He closed the door on his friend, heeding his last words, peeled out in a hasty u-turn, and sped off in the Caddy with the glare of the too-bright red and blue lights in his eyes.
His world was flight.
Of course they would find him. The officer would have called them in and his dash cam would have read the Caddy’s plates. Jon sat in a splatter of Cal’s blood, maybe some of the officer’s as well. They’d call and question poor Gram. Would they tell her about Cal right away? Then the hunt would begin. Two men had died tonight - Jon was sure of it, even though he hadn’t seen each man’s last breath. One of those had lost his life at Jon’s own hand. The other… Jon moaned to himself. If he had listened to his own thoughts, ditched that lame party, or even quit dealing sooner, Cal might not have been shot.
Cal certainly hadn’t deserved it. Sure, he had been high, and speeding, but nothing more, nothing deserving of death. Even the officer had been a victim of circumstance to some degree. Routine stop for speeding, trained to distrust the man inside, perhaps wrongfully assuming the car to be stolen. He’d been like a frightened snake, too ready to strike, nerves wound too tight, too fast.
Certainly no one involved was fully innocent, but Jon was the monster. He had no memory of grabbing the gun, as if his body harbored the desire to kill, and finally had the chance to act it out. Nevermind that he had avenged his friend.
Despite the guilt, despite the nihilism that had been gestating within him, Jon fled. Living did matter. He was not willing to suffer for this. If he could get far enough away, maybe he wouldn’t be identified - the Caddy was all Cal’s. To the desert, then. Maybe there was some water in the trunk. How long should he stay out there? How long could he stay? Jon’s mind continued to race.
Flight. There was no other option.
Jon pushed ahead for an hour before pulling off the highway onto an old, gravel farm road that threaded through barren fields. He wondered absently what anyone had ever grown out here. Maybe cotton. He had seen no sign of pursuit, miraculously, and hesitantly decided it was time to stop - no use wrecking the car on a bad road or a big rock.
The world outside the Caddy was shrouded in darkness, that deep night only experienced far from civilization. The diffuse hazy orange of city light was almost entirely obscured by the silhouettes of the bare desert mountains. If anywhere was safe to stop tonight, it was here.
Collect yourself, go from there, he thought, and cut the engine to climb out of the car. Though you’re pretty much going to jail.
Yet was that just? The officer had no tangible reason to shoot Cal - it was his fear that had sealed Cal’s fate. Jon had only acted in defense of his friend. Of course, the law would see him as a cop-killer, and he’d suffer the consequences, but outside the strictures of society, the crime began when the officer jumped the gun, as it were, and applied maximum force. Still, rationalize it as he might, he felt the weight of the killing, the senselessness of it, the intensity of taking such an action, and the word ‘murderer’ crept along in the recesses of his mind.
Jon sat on the Caddy’s hood, heat from the big engine seeping into his skin and bones. He cradled his face in his hands, trying to breathe deep and think. Maybe he really could go on the lam. Surely there were still places in the world that one could go to ‘disappear’. Places who wouldn’t ask for I.D. when he applied to be the dishwasher, or whatever. It would never be the life he’d once imagined he’d have - with a cozy house, a family, the elusive perfect job - but it would be life, and a semblance of freedom.
He had a powerful urge to smoke, but he had quit a while back, and Cal wasn’t here to bum off of. In the moment, having quit seemed a foolish decision. In fact, he could think of several substances that might be nice. Not helpful, but certainly distracting. Then he remembered Cal’s emergency pack, and ducked into the car to retrieve a smoke. The sight of the glove box brought bile into his throat.
Back on the hood, he lit up and relished the acrid tang of inhalation.
He gazed up at the dark sky, amazed as always at how many stars were visible away from the city. How long had it been since he’d really looked up at all that? Yet the expanse of time and space spread above him offered little hope, no sense of freedom. Essentially he was already imprisoned, no matter what happened in the hours to come. Nothing could ever be the same. Among his worries and thoughts for himself, one sentiment kept floating to the surface.
“Sorry Cal,” he said, as if it had all been his own fault.
Just then Jon heard a rustling in the desert brush and immediately thought coyote. He almost choked on the smoke. He hoped the animal wasn’t rabid. Jon looked around to ascertain the source of the sound, and at first, he saw nothing. Of course, if it was a coyote or other wild animal, it would keep its distance, and flee if he startled it. Jon hopped off the hood to stomp on the hard-packed ground.
“Gah!” he hollered, but there was no sound of the animal scuttling away. Instead, he thought he heard a gentle chuckle.
A small voice spoke to him from out of the deep shadows, “It’ll take more than that to scare me off, Jon.” Jon looked to the source of the voice and knew that he had lost his mind.
“Mr. Bear?” he asked, incredulous. He felt foolish immediately for addressing the vision out loud.
“In the fur,” answered the voice. Jon was certain he had snapped. Did his eyes lie?
There, standing no more than eight inches high, was the best little teddy bear of his childhood. It looked up at Jon with beady black eyes and a content, stitched-on smile. It was examining its paws, as if flaunting the fact that it was alive and quite capable of movement.
“How long did it take you to think up that brilliant moniker?” the bear teased.
Jon was shocked enough to take it seriously and protest, “I was five!” The bear chuckled again. “Are you real?” How foolish he felt to have to question the stuffed apparition.
“Are you?” Mr. Bear returned socratically. “I could have chosen any form,” he said, studying his digitless paws, “But I rather like this one. And, I thought it might make things easier.” He looked up at Jon from five over feet below. “Such good memories.”
Jon was in no mood for this and frowned down at the little bear. It was entirely possible that the events of the evening had caused him to snap, and the teddy was some complex hallucinatory manifestation of his guilt.
Yes, that was it - a subconscious mourning of the innocence of his childhood, its death completed with the act of murder. Somehow, he’d always imagined going crazy would feel a little more like being on drugs.
That was a plausible explanation too. Had somebody slipped him something back at the little party? It had been a while since he’d used anything, but maybe this was some bizarre flashback to the days before he’d cared about keeping his brain cells.
“Worked it out yet?” Mr. Bear asked, his voice light and velvety, calm smile infuriating. “Let me help you.”
The bear took Jon’s silence as assent.
“You’re in trouble tonight. Something happened you never expected, and you fled as most would do. You came way out here to do what? Use the silence to think? Figure out how to survive this? It’s not so much that you want to get away with it. No, it’s more about how you realized you care after all. How long was it, Jon? That you thought you really believed nothing mattered? Get that money however you can, get as comfy as you can, eat well, sleep long, rinse and repeat. But it stopped satisfying, didn’t it? The drugs stopped feeling good, the temporary girls got boring, having enough cash became trivial. Right so far?”
Jon just looked at the bear, stunned. His skin tingled with a sudden nervousness at being so fully known, and his stomach turned.
“Hey I’m not the police,” said the bear, “or the judge. No reason to fear me.” It sounded simultaneously reassuring and admonishing. “But I’m not done.”
Mr. Bear waddled right up to Jon’s feet and looked straight up at him with that cute little smile. Despite his vertical advantage Jon felt small in its gaze, looked down upon. “I think you know I’m real. I think you’re remembering all the years you knew impossible things could happen. You’re not really wondering why I’m here, you’re wondering why you’re here.”
Jon stood speechless. He was so stunned, he couldn’t even decide if the bear was right or not.
Mr. Bear sighed, “Look Jon, you’re not crazy - and yes you can believe me. But if you can’t get there yet, I understand. If you say yes, if you come with me, believing in these moments right now will be easy, and there will be other tests to take.”
Jon was silent a long moment before he asked, “What’s the question?”
His cigarette had worn down, and the cherry burned his fingers. His veteran reflexes allowed him to squeeze the cherry out absently as he flinched.
Mr. Bear backed up several steps and held his arms out to the sides in question. “Would you like to go someplace else? I can’t tell you much, just that the word ‘murder’ won’t haunt you forever. There is forgiveness, if you’ll have it. As to what else you’ll find if you follow, well, we all like surprises don’t we?”
Jon found that he did want to go. Was it simply because he was already fleeing? No, he’d always wanted to go. How much worse could it get following the animated teddy? He hardly cared where.
He asked, “Why me?”
“Why anyone?” the bear countered. “Right place, right time? Predestination? Random chance? Murphy’s law? Everyone gets their chances. No one gets every chance.”
“But what if I hadn’t messed up tonight? What if I’d stayed home, and Cal had lived? Who’d be here to follow you?” Jon asked.
Mr. Bear waved the query away, “Pshaw, these questions are fruitless. What happened has happened. Can you go back and change it? Do you think I could? Has God ever even done so? What is, is, and this change is yours to make. Will you come?”
The bear waited as Jon mused. Jon looked o
ver his shoulder at the orange bubble of city light, then up at the stars, as if to compare their glory. Something in the bear’s tone solidified his guilt at the murder - perhaps he should stay and face his consequences. Yet Mr. Bear’s words rang earnestly. Whether an animated toy, a spirit, or hallucination, the bear seemed to be offering not just escape, but absolution, and that without downplaying the gravity of Jon’s crime. What was the true import of the offer though? The bear said he wouldn’t speak more of Jon’s destination, so what was he holding back? Or hiding?
For the first time, Jon wondered if he were dead. Perhaps he’d been shot too? Jon, a ghost, driving off down the highway in blissful ignorance, now wandering in the wilderness with all the strange, ethereal lights…
“You’re not dead,” the bear stated flatly, perhaps reading his mind. Jon had run out his capacity for shock and simply accepted the declaration with a somewhat resigned nod.
Then he absently imagined all the things that might await him on the far side of a journey with a sapient, prophetic, thought-reading teddy bear, and impossible as they all seemed, he deemed it all worthwhile.
Something caught his eye.
Was that a flash of red and blue, far off in the darkness? Mr. Bear paid it no mind, just waited for Jon’s decision.
“Ok, I’ll come.” The bear seemed pleased, though its expression remained static - that same reassuring, perhaps smug smile of pink thread.
“You won’t regret it, in the end,” the bear declared. “Just step up.”
“Up where,” Jon asked. The only ‘up’ was onto the Caddy’s hood.
“Just think ‘up’, and follow me.” Mr. Bear turned and stepped away from Jon, who shrugged and thought ‘up’, and followed.
The earth seemed to shift below him, not moving downward, yet growing farther away. From one blink of Jon’s eyes to the next, his foot slid from solid ground to solid-seeming air. His eyes grew wide, but the bear didn’t pause, so he went on too. With each step, the sense of distance from the earth grew, first from the hard-packed dirt and scrub, then from the darkness of night itself. A hazy glow of green-gold settled over the previously imperceptible surface of reality. Jon’s feet came down on a pathway of nothing that gradually took on its own ethereal outline.