Crown of Vengeance

by Stephen Zimmer

  “What’s up, Antonio?” Logan greeted as he opened the door.

  “No different than yesterday, personally, I mean,” Antonio said grimly. He continued with his griping before Logan had a chance to respond. “Here I am on a Saturday night now, and guess what? It is still no different, treated like garbage, broke, the usual. Is anything ever going to happen to give us some hope of change. It is making me near crazy. But I did bring some food with me tonight.”

  He grinned as he held forth a small bag, loaded down with an assortment of burritos and soft tacos.

  “Good thinking, Antonio, very good thinking …. You timed it well, I think that will hit the spot right about now,” Logan commented, recognizing the familiar bag.

  Reaching into the bag, he retrieved one of the soft tacos and unwrapped it. As he took a bite, he was quietly appreciative that Antonio had remembered that Logan liked the deluxe kind with sour cream.

  “I think that it will too,” Antonio responded, retrieving one of the burritos out for himself. “I forgot completely about lunch today. You know, pizza is about the last thing that I want to see or smell at the end of a workday. I didn’t even realize I hadn’t eaten today, until about ten minutes before I left work.”

  “Well, let’s take care of this bag in its entirety. I’ll get a few soft drinks out for my part of it, and we’ll take a collective break from all of our headaches.” Logan remarked between bites, finding out that he had incurred a substantial hunger since his late afternoon visit to Lee’s Wok for yet another plate of pork-fried rice and a tall glass of ginger-ale.

  After saving his files, and shutting down his main system, Logan returned to his living room where he and Antonio relaxed and finished off the rest of their meal.

  Picking up a remote control, and sinking back into the lone couch, Antonio surfed through a good number of satellite channels. Images from reality shows, movies, and war coverage filled the screen, changing with each click. He finally settled on a music video show, but it served as little more than a backdrop for their conversation.

  “So, no luck today? No dates?” Logan asked Antonio.

  Antonio chuckled. “Who? Me? You know better than to ask, Logan. The way it seems, the minute I get a date, the world will probably end. That’s about the extent of my luck right now.”

  “The possibilities in this town are pretty dry, you know that, Antonio,” Logan said. “I wouldn’t want to date ninety percent of the women around here anyway. It’s one thing or another … control … money … looks …. Whether you fit the proper image. Whether you attend the correct church. Whether you don’t attend a church. And on and on. I could go on and on, but I won’t. It’s like you have to fulfill some kind of checklist with any of them. Just don’t worry about it … I know I’ve said it fourteen thousand times before. I say that we are just going to have to stick with things, and believe that something is going to break. And when we get the chance to turn the tables, we grab it. Something where we can set our own rules.”

  “I hope that it’s sometime real soon,” Antonio remarked before adding, after a pause, “I really don’t need different rules overall, just a fair chance with the rules that there are.”

  “I’ll take new rules if I can get them,” Logan replied tersely. “The ones that are in place in this world don’t offer much at all to most of us.”

  “Hard to please you,” Antonio said, with a slight grin.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m getting a little cynical, in my ripe old age of twenty-eight,” Logan retorted, his momentary tension relaxing a little.

  “Then I’m probably a little naive and gullible at the ripe young age of twenty-seven,” Antonio countered, laughing.

  “Maybe we both need to move more towards the center, they say balance is supposed to be best,” Logan commented.

  “Maybe so,” Antonio agreed, leaning forward and popping open another can of soda. “So how’s work coming along today? Workload getting any better?”

  “Nope. More work than I seem to have hours for. The pay hasn’t changed either. I just have to build up my credentials and reputation to get to where I can do a project that I choose to do for myself; One which will actually have a chance of getting out there into the public eye,” Logan answered, somewhat more ruefully.

  He stared off with a wistful expression, thinking of just how ephemeral that goal was beginning to appear. He knew that he was in a great rut, if not a kind of trap, in that he had attained a level that would keep him afloat but not get him far enough to accomplish what he wanted.

  With financial obligations weighing upon him, he could not make risky changes at this point. Resentment about all of it was percolating within him.

  “You have to suffer this stage to accomplish that, I’ve found, and that’s still no guarantee,” Logan stated dourly. “And you also have to block it all out of your mind, when most every dime that you get in compensation is immediately shuttled to the bank to cover bills. It’s maddening, some days. It really is.”

  “I bet it is … I bet I make even better money than you right now, even with all the times that I get stiffed completely on tips,” Antonio chided.

  “You don’t even want to know what my hourly rate comes out to,” Logan answered, a bittersweet grin on his face as he shook his head. “It’s not an enticing sum, I can guarantee you that much. I made the mistake of calculating it out once. Never going to do that again. Too depressing.”

  “But at least you get to get paid doing art, and you do like art, that’s something,” Antonio observed encouragingly. “I can’t even really figure out what I like, but I can assure you that what I do like has absolutely nothing to do with driving pizzas around.”

  “Like I’ve always said, think of the things that you like as hobbies or pastimes, and then find a way to make a career out of it,” Logan advised him.

  “I might enjoy the food business more if I could make some real decisions on things that would make the business run better, and where I could make sure people don’t get treated like I’ve been. Maybe something in management, but sure as the sun rises I’m not going to get many opportunities in my current situation,” Antonio commented with a melancholic edge.

  “I think that you can … You’re smart enough, and you see what’s wrong with things. Why not go back to school and work on finishing up a degree?” Logan suggested. “Maybe that could give you the boost.”

  “Too broke right now, and I’m in no position to get into further debt,” Antonio said. “In a nutshell, that’s the sum of it all.”

  Antonio then shook his head and laughed.

  “And you know what, most of my co-workers who drive already have their degrees, and it hasn’t done them any good,” he stated. “Why would I think I would be any different?”

  “Well … for whatever it’s worth, if I ever make any money, I’ll have to buy a restaurant, and get you to manage it. You’d better, because I have a short fuse when it comes to stupidity, and I’m sure you encounter a lot of that among your co-workers. So what do you say about that?” Logan offered, the corners of his lips turning up into a grin.

  “Okay … I could deal with that,” Antonio replied, nodding and grinning. “So you better double the number of clients that you take on, because I don’t know how much longer my sanity will last.”

  Logan laughed. “That, my friend, is a very difficult proposition. If I take on even one more client, I’m afraid that my own sanity will crack.”

  “Dilemmas, dilemmas,” Antonio sighed, as they sat in silence for a few moments.

  “Well, after we finish up our sodas, what do you say to another neighborhood excursion?” Logan suggested. “Our walkabout cleared my head pretty good last night. And I want to take advantage of this weather, before it starts getting colder and rainier. They say a streak of bad weather is right around the corner.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” Antonio agreed. He chuckled, “Who knows what we might get into?”

  The two finished off their soft d
rinks while passively watching a few more music videos. When they were finally ready to go, Logan bagged up all of the garbage into the food bag. He carried it outside with him, and tossed it into a garbage can by his house as they set out for the night.

  Once again, the night was fairly clear, mildly cool with perhaps only a slight increase in the amount of cloud cover. The night seemed to have its own glow about it, buoyed up by the illuminating power of the full moon.

  “The first steps always feel so good, so free,” Logan opined as they reached the sidewalk. He looked down towards the right. “What do you say? Let’s take this direction tonight.”

  With no argument from Antonio, the pair headed up the street. Reaching his arms out wide, Logan stretched out and turned about in a full circle. All throughout the movement, he kept his eyes squarely focused on the star-filled sky above.

  Gradually, he oriented his focus back onto the path that they were taking. A broad, weightless smile was on his face, as his cares seemed to melt away.

  They were striding up towards the crest of a small hill. He turned towards Antonio. “Remember what I was talking about last night?”

  Antonio nodded, and his eyes took on a hint of hope. “Yes, and I thought about that a little today. I agree with you … I wish that something really miraculous would happen. Could it really, do you think?”

  Logan’s eyes sparkled with the inner vision that he now held within him. The star-filled frontier of infinite space piqued his mind and imagination once again.

  “What if? Just what if over the crest of that hill right ahead of us was an all new reality?” Logan asked his longtime friend, as a fire flared within him. “And your big adventure was really in the offing, something that would be more than anything than we have ever known before … Something that would enable us to show what we are really made of … Maybe a place where we could get in control of the rules, take charge of things, and set things to rights.”

  “I could do with just a different adventure, even if it isn’t all that grand,” Antonio joked. “But you are right. That would be something else, and if it could be grand, I wouldn’t complain.”

  “Well, let’s head for the top of the hill … who knows?” Logan said, picking up his pace a little.

  Antonio had to spur himself forward to catch up with his suddenly inspired friend. The two walked quickly to the top of the hill.

  They saw what they had seen so many times before, whenever they had walked up that sidewalk or driven their cars up the street.

  A swathe of houses and the continuation of the road and its flanking sidewalks filled up their field of vision. Logan felt a little disappointment flash within him.

  It was not that he expected to see anything else, but there was always that small, but potent, part of him that entertained the notion that the impossible was indeed possible. It was the brief glimmer of hope that maybe the very next horizon would reveal something altogether different and wonderful.

  “Well, I guess we will have to climb the hill again on some other day, won’t we?” Antonio remarked with a grin.

  Logan shrugged in resignation. “I guess so. But at least we can console ourselves that we are just falling back to the status quo. I guess that there is something to be grateful about in that. Things could be worse.”

  “There is that,” Antonio concurred.

  “As strange as it sounds, I still feel disappointed,” Logan said. His voice then brightened a little, as a more practical inspiration came to him. “But you know what?”

  “What’s that?” Antonio asked.

  “As random as this sounds, I have a sudden craving for a strawberry shake,” Logan announced.

  “We just started the walk,” Antonio pointed out, “but if that’s what you want to do.”

  “I’ll splurge and pay for yours,” Logan said. “Since I can’t make up my mind tonight.”

  “Big spender,” joked Antonio.

  The two turned about, and made the brief trek back down the slope of the hill to Logan’s house. Logan’s black sports car was resting in its familiar place in the driveway.

  He got his keys out of his pocket, unlocked the driver’s side door, and pushed the button on it to open the lock on Antonio’s passenger side.

  Antonio settled into the bucket seat on his side, as Logan got in, set the key and turned the ignition, and gunned the engine to thundering life.

  “I just love the sound of that,” Logan remarked, sitting still for few moments as he listened to the steady, throaty rumble of his idling car.

  Reaching down, he picked up his disc case and pulled out a release by a heavy rock act that was one of his favorites. Popping it in, he cranked up the stereo as the first drumbeats and guitar chords sounded, lowering his windows all the way down.

  “Alright, let’s go!” Logan said, backing the car out of the driveway.

  Once oriented on the street, the car lurched into motion, as if it had a life of its own. In Logan’s eyes, the car was a war horse. Behind the wheel, Logan often likened himself to a jousting knight, sitting proud and self-confident upon his very capable steed, a metal beast that could barely be reined in from exploding into a full-tilt, all-out charge.

  They drove down to the end of the street and took a right, finally emerging out of the neighborhood as they turned onto one of the city’s main roads. They proceeded through more several lights as they drove towards the south end of town, amid a sporadic amount of traffic out at the later hour.

  Finally, they turned right at a junction by the largest city mall. The road ahead of them ran adjacent to a large public park that contained a long and winding creek. The other side primarily consisted of an extensive swathe of undeveloped, open fields.

  The road itself was barely visible just a short distance away, enveloped within a dense fog.

  “Time to click on the brights,” Logan commented, as he flicked the lever that unleashed the car’s high beams.

  “That looks really thick,” Antonio observed with a hint of curiosity, as they entered the fog’s outer edges.

  The words were an understatement, as the fog increased in density as they moved through it. The effect was highly unsettling to Logan. In just moments, the headlights of the car could only cut through a few feet, barely enough to keep the road beneath them in view.

  DEREK

  Though it was a Saturday, and no formal work was in the offing, Derek was up and out of bed well before dawn.

  Following a brisk jog in the damp coolness of the early morning, he had proceeded through a series of calisthenics and a few of the martial arts routines that he had picked up during his four years of service in the military.

  Regular workouts had chiseled his body into excellent condition, as well as giving him a way to clear his mind from any burdens besetting it.

  Following the previous day, with his heart weighed down in the presence of Janus’ great sorrows, it was much more difficult than usual to regain any clarity of thought.

  Fortunately, he had succeeded in arranging for a substitute for his late afternoon shift, and the next day’s as well, managing the produce section at the grocery superstore down the street. He had been compelled to barter off some favors for the late notice, which would result in his taking on some very inconvenient shifts over the next week, but he had agreed to the terms without any regret. The call of friendship had taken precedence.

  Finished with the morning exercise and back in his house again, he had quickly discarded his sweat-saturated t-shirt into his laundry basket. Moving into the kitchen, he poured and imbibed a tall, cold glass of orange juice before picking up his satellite phone.

  Clicking on Kent McNeeley’s name, he rang the number repeatedly, clicking off the phone when it reached the voice mail, and redialing until his sluggish friend grudgingly answered.

  Kent was not pleased at the hour of the phone call, especially given the fact that it was a Saturday morning. He proceeded to utter some extremely descriptive language from the oth
er end that would have reddened most listeners’ ears.

  Knowing Kent well enough, Derek suffered the rant patiently as he stifled some amused laughter. Derek had inadvertently cost Kent his final hour of sleep before he had to go to work, which evidently was quite a major transgression in Kent’s eyes.

  Yet once the situation was explained, it did not take long at all for Kent to agree and his mood to change. He had even apologized for addressing Derek with such numerous expletives for having gotten him up so early.

  Plans for Derek’s jaunt were then set between the two of them, to be executed in the later afternoon.

  Once off the phone, Derek treated himself to an extended, warm shower. The early morning workout and the massage of the pattering water from the shower left him feeling fully refreshed and ready for the day.

  Janus was still asleep when Derek had finished with everything, as Derek had taken great care not to disturb his deeply grieving friend.

  First turning the volume off on his speakers, he turned his personal computer system on. He indulged himself for a little while by catching up on several online sports articles, some current news, and the promotional sites for a few upcoming movies that he had been looking forward to.

  He read over a few reports on the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East with some considerable interest, curious about some of the tactical approaches, the analysis of which appealed to his military background.

  The motives behind the war, and the specific persons loudly championing it, though, had long filled his mouth with great distaste. To him, the conflict was about little more than power, made painfully obvious as the justifications offered to the public for the war had changed time and time again.

  The nation under attack, with its decrepit, obsolete military, decayed under extensive previous sanctions, could not muster any threat to the USA, not in a hundred years. Even worse, a fragile lid kept on long simmering ethnic, religious, and tribal tensions within the area was about to be blown apart in the process of destroying the fully constrained regime that had been in power.