After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  But no. Surely that is ridiculous. It has to be. Freddy did not come from me but he did come from something. He could not have willed himself from nothing. Could he?

  Even in dealing death Freddy Cartwright has always been vibrantly alive. He is real. He is flesh. Ten is more than an age. Ten is a year. I know now why seeing him at age ten, splayed on the cracked asphalt in front of Nancy’s whale of a car is my first memory of him. It is the first memory that is truly mine. Period.

  Again, with the truth. I know the truth now. I suppose I have known for some time. It only makes sense. I am the monster. I am the high shelf and the darkness in the corners. I am the forgotten, the cast aside. My little world is a corner office, the real annex. My life is the view from a dusty window. Freddy made me. He is the creator. I am a vessel of dreams. We are one.

  But I have the wheel now and I can see the waters rising up to me. And you know what? I’m fine with that. The waters are warm. And at long last I am free.”

  Epilogue

  Darkness Falls

  His hands were already grown cold when Father Eric took the cup from them. He signed the cross and closed the stranger’s eyes. He had few words to say, fewer to feel. None to pray. Not right now. He leaned back and sighed. Beneath him the old chair groaned, as if sensing the greater burden he carried.

  Kumbé’s dark eyes questioned him. The jagged scar on his throat was pale against his soot black skin. Kumbé knew about hate. He knew about rage. If anyone would know it was the young Jesuit.

  “What do you make of it, of all of it?” Father Eric asked him. Around them the building held its silence. It was a silence found only in these small hours.

  Kumbé signed, his broad hands nearly delicate when he used them so. He paused and plucked at the expensive wool overcoat and then again at the faded green uniform shirt beneath. He signed some more.

  “I know, brother.” He wanted a drink. Just a taste – enough to cleanse the clinging tang of death from his throat. But it was never just one. “You didn’t need to sit with us. But I thank you.”

  The big monk signed quickly. When he was finished, he raised his hands and shrugged.

  “It isn’t for us to decide,” Father Eric replied. “God’s judgment is eternal. Our laws are fleeting.”

  Five quick motions followed.

  He nodded. “Ours laws are the laws of those with power. God’s are with purpose.”

  Kumbé signed. A faint rasp of sound escaped his broken larynx. He gestured toward the closed door.

  Father Eric nodded. “His need for sanctuary had passed. Go and tell them. Please ask them to be quiet.” He bowed his head and found he still could not pray. He knew the words but his heart was not yet willing.

  Kumbé shifted his bulk and rose. He was an impressive sight. The only sound he made was from the soft rustle of his robes. At the door he paused and clapped his hands lightly to get the priest’s attention.

  Father Eric looked up.

  The signs came slowly, forcibly pronounced and punctuated. Kumbé pointed one finger the size of a banana at him before patting his own chest.

  “Thank you, Brother. You are right, of course.” Father Eric lowered his head again. Behind him the door closed with a faint click.

  God will guide this one, Kumbé had said, just as he guides you and me. We are all blessed – even you … and even me.

  Father Eric listened to the silence. This was his little world. He was the key that fit its lock. No, not quite. He thought a moment. The truth was this old place was actually the key. There was a lock on his heart left shackled and moldering from his early years. Only this dusty old place could remove it.

  He leaned forward and pulled back the stranger’s coat. It was the garment of a man with wealth, for whom nothing was too good. The janitor’s uniform beneath was another thing entirely. It was the garb of the meek. Blood had soaked the entire right side of the shirt. It was a slick, wet sheet plastered to his still chest. Beneath him the couch was ruined. More blood had pooled and run, still spattering irregular drops onto the spent floor.

  “And the meek shall inherit the earth.” Father Eric sighed. He flipped the other lapel. Kumbé had not seen it – he was certain of it. But Eric had, just briefly, just for a moment as they were setting him in place on the couch.

  Blood and filth flecked the left side of the shirt as well. But the breast pocket was mostly clean. A name was embroidered on it.

  The name was not Freddy.

  -

  Her feet were killing her. Her lower back ached from swaying her hips and her shoulders burned. Friday nights were always long nights. But the tips were good. The tips made it worth it. But now all she wanted to do was get home lay in the bath while Miss-Priss purred on the toilet tank.

  Cass skipped her step once and glanced around self-consciously. All a girl needs – well, almost. But after Brett, bubbles and an aloof cat were enough. Especially after Brett.

  Down the street the flickering lights of police cars made her slow. They were out in front of the big church, just sitting there. Barricades had been set up around the front doors. News vans kept a respectful distance, more respectful than the nearly two dozen spectators leaning into the wooden barriers. A few cops watched the crowd – only a few. Three or four uniforms were on the steps in a little circle. They had Tim’s in their hands.

  A gun at the door, three fights and a perv who kept patting the girls’ butts and tried to grab her breasts before Lenny finally kicked him out. All in one night and two blocks away. Fucking cops. She knew she would see a box of donuts sitting on the hood of one of the cruisers as she walked by. Cops never seemed to get after the guys who needed getting after.

  Cass sucked cool air and breathed a plume of it like a smoker. She should know. She usually picked them herself. But at least the snow was stopping. That was something. It was too early for snow. She wasn’t ready for the real cold.

  Briefly her mind spun back to that weekend by the fire. Last March in Lake Louise. That had been nice. Seal was playing in the deck. They must have listened to that old CD a dozen times. It was always fine for snow when you had a good merlot in front of the fire with the right man – or at least who you thought was the right man.

  The image soured. She had a scar on her right thigh and a matching set on the palm and the back her right hand to prove he wasn’t the right guy. Cass could always pick ‘em. Everyone knew she could.

  She was nearing the church. The circle-jerk on the steps had broken up and four cops were clustered around a huge black man in a brown robe. The city was quiet the way it was only under a fresh coat of snow. Voices carried. Echoes died. Murmurs from the crowd kept low. The cops were speaking to the big man. She couldn’t hear what was being said.

  Cass slowed to a stop and just stood there watching. The big monk glanced her way. She could see him from the ribs up over those stupid cop hats with their stupid shower caps on the crowns. He was a step up but that only made up a little of it. He must have been nearly seven feet tall. And those eyes – no one looked with eyes like that. They were coals just cooled to black, but smoldering still. Her breath caught. He looked right through her.

  A guy like that must be hung like a horse. The thought made her blush. She glanced at her feet and back again. He was still looking at her. Something in his expression scared her a little. She couldn’t put it into words. She couldn’t even frame it in her thoughts. It was just deep. And broad. Those coal-black eyes just seemed to know. They drew her.

  The bath could wait a few minutes. Cass went to step off the curb, but stopped. She felt a presence at her side. She was sure he hadn’t been there a moment ago. He was standing in the darker space between two streetlights and his clothes were darker still, a sort of charcoal gray or soft black. He was staring, rubber-necking really – just as she was. She couldn’t stop him. The sidewalk was free real estate. But she would not look at him. She didn’t want to make eye contact. That’s when hearts broke.

  “Th
ey caught him,” the guy said. He had a soft voice, a careful voice. It was the voice of someone who frames thoughts into words before speaking them. A little quiver ran through her.

  “Pardon me?” Cass asked him. She did look at him then. He was thirty – plus or minus. And he was buff. She forced the image of her hands on his bare torso out of her mind then let it creep back in. His haircut suggested military but his clothing said otherwise. His clothes said money – not rich necessarily, but definitely getting there.

  He glanced her way and his eyes did a quick bounce to her shoes and back. He was allowed. It didn’t hurt to look. She had just done the same thing to him – he just never caught her doing it. Besides, he was cute. Cass felt herself slipping into his eyes. His eyes were water. Sad, warm, hurt and commanding she called them. She could stare into those eyes forever.

  “They caught him,” he repeated.

  “Him?” She asked. “Him who?”

  “The killer.” He smiled a smile that never did move a muscle on his face. It was all in his eyes. Sad, warm, hurt and commanding. “The killer.”

  A weight she had been carrying her whole adult life seemed to lift and disappear. She had stopped noticing it years ago. It was that fear of the dark, of strangers on the corner and creaks in the night when she was alone. It was simply gone now. The night didn’t seem so dark, the shadows not so deeply cast.

  “You’re serious?”

  He nodded. “I think he’s dead.” He nodded again. He exhaled a fine frost of breath. “Yeah, he’s dead. I can feel it somehow. They say he tried to nab a kid over in Erlton. Her father shot him. He was holed up in there.” He inclined his head toward the church.

  The black man was still there, still staring at her. Maybe he was a freak or something.

  She turned her attention back to the man beside her. He had gestured with his head because his hands were in his pants pockets. He was trying not to shiver. Only then did she realize he was not wearing a coat. He might have left it in a bar but he didn’t sound like he’d been drinking or look it either. Some guys didn’t even bring a coat. They thought it was cool or something. But this one looked like he didn’t really care what cool was. There probably wasn’t an answer there but she asked anyway.

  The smile in his eyes faded. His was the look of someone who had seen things – possibly done things. His hair was in a military cut. Maybe he had seen. Maybe he had done. His eyes just made her want to hold him, let him hold her.

  “I gave it away,” he told her and his eyes just lit with a happiness that made her want to be happy with him. “The guy I gave it to seemed like he might have a better use for it.” He shrugged it off like it was spare change.

  Impulse was always her enemy. In this instance she thought she knew her luck was turning. It had to eventually. The odds were against two guys in a row sticking a kitchen knife in you. “You’re freezing,” she said.

  He shrugged again. He took an old, battered lighter out of his pocket, flicked it open and lit it. He ran his fingers over the flame once and closed the lighter before returning it to his pocket. It was an odd gesture but sometimes odd was okay.

  Cass shivered herself. For a moment his shadow in the light of the flame had become someone else, someone standing just off his shoulder. The moment ended. They were alone again, save for the weird monk’s staring eyes. There was something she could do about that. “You know,” her heart fluttered as she spoke, “I only live around the corner. You could come up and get warmed up if you want. I’ll make you some tea. And popcorn if you like.”

  His full smile was dimpled and gorgeous but only lasted the life of a falling star. “I’d like that,” he told her. And his finger rose absently to scratch at an itch under his eye.

  About The Author

  Colin Gallant

  Colin Gallant lives in Calgary, Alberta. When not hunched at his desk, he prefers to roam the wilds of the world beyond his window.