David pushed himself upright, hands on his knees, flashing a ruined smile at his new friend Phil, “Never look a gift horse.”
Phil, who had managed to live thirty-six years without hearing the expression, frowned, “Nope, never look a gift horse.” When in Rome, he thought to himself as he walked around to the back of the van.
Now dressed in khaki shorts, a green ringer, and flip flops, David waved to Phil as he pulled away. He started down the road in the opposite direction, and had only been walking for two minutes when he saw the taxi, the cartoon font DC encircled by the times roman ‘Delta Cabba’. David waved, and limped out into the road, making sure he caught the driver’s attention. The driver passed him, signaling, then performed a clean U-turn and pulled up next to David. The passenger side window slid down smoothly, “Where to?” the voice from inside the cab called out, unexpectedly gruff and demanding.
“Prince Fred?” David replied, hoping that in the act of shortening the town name, he’d come off as sounding like one of the locals.
The driver tipped his head back slightly in acknowledgment that this was the correct response.
“Jump in.”
The cab driver watched David hunker down suspiciously in the back seat.
“You drawing heat?”
David caught site of the driver’s face through the rear-view mirror. The man’s expression was one of sarcastic entertainment rather than genuine interest.
“If you gotta’ know, I’m having an affair with a girl in Port Republic, but I’ve got family out this way too.”
The cab owner looked impressed, “That how come you’re all beat up?”
“Pardon?”
The man dispensed with the illusion of driving and glanced over his shoulder, pointing, “You know, your cuts and bumps, you get them on account of your nocturnal indiscretions?”
David laughed painfully, “Sure, sure. I’ve taken some flak for it, but what’s a guy to do right?”
“Right, right.” This guy, the cab owner nodded … affair my ass.
The rest of the thankfully short drive went by in stony silence until the car wheezed to a stop on the main strip of Prince Frederic. “That’ll be twenty-two sixty.” David was outraged, but smiled, and handed over thirty, “Keep the change.
He wasn’t sure why Prince Frederic had come to mind, but he put it down to hunger. He’d eaten at an Outback Steakhouse there, once upon a time, when he was a child, and Hannah had been barely grown enough to be seated at the table. It was one of those odd memories that had etched permanently into his repertoire, and for the most trivial of reasons. Nonetheless, there it was in his mind’s eye, a vivid window into an incident that would hold no sway or relevance ever again. As he looked at the store fronts, trying to figure out if one of the stores would let him use their phone, he rubbed his mind’s eye. Salt. That was how that particular evening had become so indelibly etched. Excited by everything on the menu, he had ordered a rack of ribs, and a side that was mostly an onion, but looked kind of like someone had battered and deep fried a chrysanthemum. When the meal was brought out, David had proceeded to reach across the condiments in the middle of the table and spoon what he assumed to be salt over everything, then he had sat teary eyed, grimacing, too embarrassed to tell anyone that he’d ruined his meal with sugar.
Well, that was all behind him now. Here he was, a grown man, back in town, and he walked towards a coffee shop, a smile forming as it occurred to him that he always read the packets now, even in a coffee shop, where they would all be sugar, or sweetener of some sort.
“Do you mind if I use your phone?”
The girl behind the counter, teenage, red haired, tattoos peeking out from her neckline and under the cuffs of both short shirt sleeves, tilted her head sideways, eyes wide, mouth falling open. She scratched her shoulder, and David was pretty sure she managed to sneak a quick sniff of her armpit as she did so. “You gotta buy something.”
David nodded, “I’ll take a coffee.”
The girl pointed at the large blackboard which hung on the back wall, but David now couldn’t take his eyes off the girl’s mouth. She had the worst teeth. How, he wondered, does an individual allow that to happen inside their mouth?
“You gonna’ order something, or what?”
David drummed the counter with his fingertips, “I’ll have a large Americano, with four shots of espresso and room for cream.”
The girl’s smile was hostile as she walked towards the large Italian made espresso machine. David waved to her, and then pointed towards the phone, which sat at the end of the counter. The girl raised a nostril and looked away in acknowledgment, downcast eyes managing to convey a hostility of such specificity that David shuddered. As he walked to the end of the counter, he noticed that conveniently (at least for patrons of the store,) there were business cards for several taxi companies arranged in neat piles beside the phone. As he picked a card, more or less at random, he watched the red head, half convinced she would spit in his coffee.
“Yes, hi, I wonder if you could send a taxi right now?” The man on the other end of the line mumbled something that David couldn’t make out, and David asked his pardon.
“I said …” he sung, stretching the word ‘said’ into a little aria of exasperation at the indignity of having to repeat a sentence, “We’ve got your current location in the system, we just need to know where you’re heading.”
“Brentwood.”
“I need an address sir.”
David gave the man an address, someone from Stephanie’s carpool group, but his mind had already checked out of the conversation. The red head had sneezed over his cup before placing the lid on, nice and tight.
“What’s your name kid?” David heard the words come out of his own mouth, and could do nothing to change that this had happened. They’re out there now, he thought, let them go … In his mouth brain, he had sounded like an old school detective, about to drill a suspect. In his actual brain, he realized immediately that he sounded like an asshole.
The girl flicked her head, which had no effect as her hair was tied up in a ponytail, “Brook.”
“Babbling Brook.” David responded, aware that this only served to compound his apparent personality deficit.
“No. Just Brook.” The girl smiled awkwardly now, flashing all of her yellowing teeth in their full horror.
David stared at her mouth for too long, “Brook, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to fix me another coffee.”
“Why?”
He nodded towards the waxed cardboard cup which sat on the counter between them, “Because Brook, as much as I’ve grown to like you in the past couple of minutes, and that’s a whole heck of a lot, I am not yet ready to swap spit with you.”
Brook’s mouth opened wide, her lower lip curling over her bottom teeth (thank god), her jaw pushing forward. She picked the cup off the counter, staring deep into David’s eyes. David nodded, “I can see it Brook, don’t worry. I see the flames. I see the fires of hell you’re imagining for me.”
Brook hid her head behind the glistening chrome machinery, blushing.
As he watched the taxi pull up outside, David began to suspect that feigning sleep would be implausible. The taxi was a 2010 Honda Accord, a fine car in its day to be sure, but as far as this taxi was concerned, today was clearly not its day.
“Sorry I took so long getting here, had to gas the bitch up.” The driver leaned towards the open passenger window, morning sun gleaming on his balding head. David hated the driver, immediately, from his thick jawed unshaven and pock marked face, right down to his ripped, and god he hoped … coffee stained jeans.
“It’s all good my man.” David lied, hating himself for his half-assed attempt at camaraderie.
“You been out partying bro?”
David opened the rear passenger side door and climbed in apprehensively, pondering on the unfortunate series of catastrophes which would have led to his mother stooping low enough from grace to forni
cate with this fuckwit’s father. “Something like that br ...” He managed to stop himself before he finished uttering the loathsome appellation “bro” and he ended instead on a weak, “yeah …”
The driver turned in his seat and faced David, “So?”
David was confused, until he realized that the driver must have either not been told by the dispatch office, or had already forgotten where David was heading.
“Brentwood.”
The driver turned up the radio which was tuned to a talk station, and craning his neck over the headrest slightly, he asked David if he minded. David muttered his unenthusiastic approval.
The voices of three brash and opinionated pseudo-intellectuals hammered out a heated debate over the succession and appointment of President Lucas Miller and what it meant for America.
“What do you think to Miller Bro?” The driver watched David through the rear view mirror, clearly awaiting a response. West had warned David about the danger of revealing anything about his identity, so David offered a noncommittal, “He seems okay, I honestly don’t pay enough attention to politics.”
Of course, David had been on first name terms with the then Vice President Lucas Miller and his wife, now First Lady Petra Miller. What was there to say about Miller? As far as David was concerned, he was really a carbon copy of Allan Tiernan. He even looked like he could have been family.
“Man, I’m not into politics either, for real. I mostly listen to this shit for the sports desk.”
“Right.” Sports was a topic that David felt inadequately equipped to discuss. He didn’t follow any teams, he didn’t watch many games and he knew this made him difficult for a lot of guys to relate to. The driver seemed to be perceptive enough at least to pick up on David’s lack of gusto for sport, focusing his eyes on the road ahead, apparently listening to the radio show.
Garry Watzchek wasn’t listening to the radio, he was rifling through his mental index cards, trying to find a more appropriate opening gambit to try on with his passenger, “You read much?” he ventured.
David licked his lips and thought about deflecting the offer of conversation again, thinking to himself that literature might turn out to be the lesser of evils when it came to making conversation with this loathsome prick. He wrinkled his nose and rubbed his brow slightly, bracing himself for the worst, “Yeah I read some …”
Garry Watzchek smiled inwardly as he navigated the car along Solomons Island Road. He had a pretty good knack for breaking down people’s barriers and he was pleased with himself that this guy had only taken him … what, three minutes?
“So what kind of stuff do you read?”
David watched the trees race by as his breath fogged up the window, “I read a lot of factual stuff, books on physics, history, things like that.”
Garry nodded his approval, “Physics man, that’s some heavy reading right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You read any of Fenyman’s books?” Garry mentally patted his own back, confident that his passenger would warm to him now. In the back seat, David bit his knuckle discretely, wishing that the driver had been a history buff. The name Fenyman was familiar to David, but he wasn’t sure what he had written. He tried bluffing, “Yeah, he’s quite the character.”
Garry laughed and nodded, “He really knows how to make that shit relatable right?”
David smiled at the driver as he caught him glancing back at him through the mirror. He made a mental note that he should look up the name Fenyman when he got home.
“Dude, I was like four years old when Fenyman died. I actually frickin cried when my dad told me he was dead. Can you believe that shit?”
David shook his head. The idea that the cab driver could be moved to tears by the death of an author seemed surreal and jarring. He was starting to feel guilty over his conceited attitude towards the man.
The driver continued, “You know, I studied physics at Caltech for three years? I had to pull out when my Mom died … had a bit of a … a breakdown I guess you’d call it.”
David’s feeling of guilt turned to embarrassment as he listened to the driver talk. His heart raced and his stomach knotted up. He felt in his pocket, realizing he’d stuffed a napkin in there. He knew that the redhead had handed him a napkin along with his coffee, and as he pulled it out, he saw that she had written down her phone number, scrawled her name, and left him three yellow toothed kisses.
Xxx
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pizza and History
West made good time, arriving in New York by ten a.m. He had hoped to get back in time to catch Charlene Osterman waking, but it had been worth putting in a little extra time with David Beach to make sure he was left with clear instructions. When he got to the apartment block, he headed towards the stairwell, but he was stopped in his tracks the doorman.
“Hey there, wait up… wait a minute sir.” He heaved out of his comfortable seat, “Could I ask who you’re here to see?”
“Larry it’s me.”
The doorman squinted, resting an amiable hand on West’s shoulder, “Westie? Holy shit man, I didn’t recognize you without your Rasputin getup.”
West laughed, “Rasputin? That what you think of me?”
“Son, I ain’t saying nothing ‘bout your way with the ladies, but you been rocking that Tsarina screwing, Grizzly Adams mess for long as I can remember.”
West nodded his acknowledgment, “What can I say? I’m coming out of my shell.”
Larry’s eyes widened ponderously, “Well good for you.”
West smiled, “Listen Larry, about that… I’m expecting company; a guy and his daughter. I’m putting them up in 210.”
“No problem.”
West opened the door to the stairwell, but then turned as an afterthought occurred to him, “Expect the unexpected. The guy, he’s in trouble.”
Larry settled back into his chair, “You in trouble?”
“Heading that way.”
West took the stairs and dropped his case off at his apartment, changing into a pair of dark jeans, a slogan laden t-shirt and a black sweater before making his way down the hall to Charlene’s apartment. He knocked on the door gently.
Inside the apartment, Charlene had been sitting on the floor of the kitchenette, rocking back and forth, staring at the empty refrigerator. She was only vaguely aware of a sound somewhere at the periphery of her senses. By the third set of knocks, Charlene picked herself up from the floor, rocking forward onto the palms of her hands and pushing up. She walked to the door apprehensively and stood looking at it, waiting for something to happen. When the knock came again, she spoke up, “Who is it?””
West leaned close to the door and whispered, “It’s West.” He heard the rotating lock cylinder of the deadbolt and the door opened. Charlene leaned an arm up against the door and rested her head against it, adjusting the cream wool hat with her free hand. “You want to go get some breakfast?” she asked, her voice slow and husky. West’s hand went unbidden to his mouth, touching his lips, fishing for words. West recognized the woman who stood before him, knew it was her, understood that she bore many of the same characteristics of a girl he had known once. Here was Charlene Osterman, no longer the hopeful and naive girl he had left without a word, or the woman he had watched from a distance as her features became etched with age and her energy waned. This was wrong, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He had expected Charlene to be pleased with the relief from pain brought about by the presence of the leech. Not this though … When he finally spoke to her, the only thing he could think to say was, “Charlene, I’m sorry.”
She smiled coyly, her hand sliding down the door and pushing it open further, “Mr Yestler, buy me breakfast and all will be forgiven.”
West moved towards the threshold of the door and leaned towards her, “I don’t understand how this has happened. One leech shouldn’t …” Charlene raised her left hand and put a finger to his lips, offering her suggestion, “Perhaps it was a girl leech
?” West shook his head, “They’re hermaphrodites, but …”
Charlene took a step closer and West backed away. Her smile broadened as she reached out and touched the side of his face, “Really West, food first, questions later.”
West nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling slowly, mastering his nerves before he looked at her again, “You’ll need to cover up then.”
“I’m sorry? I’m eighty-five years old, I can damn well make up my own mind how I dress, thank you very much.” She replied in a mockingly petulant tone.
West grimaced, realizing how he must sound, “No Charlene, you look … It’s just … the leeches …” He stopped and took a breath, “Do you have any antihistamine pills?”
Charlene shook her head, “I don’t suffer from any allergies.”
West nodded, “Let me run next door, I’ll be back in a second.” Charlene was left standing in the doorway, and she leaned against the door frame, watching West hurry off down the hall. When he returned, he was brandishing a small blister pack of pills, “You need to take one of these.” Charlene took the packet from his hand, read the label and asked, “Why antihistamine?”
“You might experience a slightly adverse reaction to the sun, a form of Solar Urticaria. Apparently there are certain antibodies in blood that the leeches aren’t able to reproduce. Antihistamine does a pretty good job of keeping it at bay.”
Charlene rolled her eyes and pressed a finger into one of the small plastic bubbles, pushing the pill through the paper before throwing it into her mouth casually. Food is food, she thought, and besides, if the leeches hadn’t killed her, what harm could an antihistamine pill do.
As they traversed the stairs of the apartment building, Charlene asked West what Solar Urticaria was and he explained that it was basically a skin irritation brought on by the sun, “As I remember it, my first experience of it was pretty excruciating, but it didn’t last very long.”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 10