by Hunter Shea
Justin turned to the starburst of holes in his solid steel cell door.
"Danny!" Justin called through the circular grate.
Justin could hear the familiar clump of Danny's dress shoes on the hall linoleum. Danny was the one guard that was decent to Justin. The guards on the evening and midnight shift picked on Justin when they were in good moods. They tormented him if they were grumpy.
Just Justin, it’s just Justin.
"It's not time yet," Danny said from the other side of the door.
Justin glanced out the window. Sand was making its way across the rear parking lot in progressive waves. Though it was a dry, cold day in March, Justin began to catch the smell of barbecue and sun-roasted pavement.
"Please, Danny. I wanna go early today," Justin said.
"You ain't allowed in the yard until eleven. You know that," Danny's muffled voice forced its way through the solid steel door.
"Come on, please? I wanna go out in the sun. It's gonna rain later," Justin said.
Sand lapped up against the first row of cars in the parking lot. Sandpipers peeped their urgent call as they avoided the pendulum rush of the sand, retreating some then encroaching farther. The smell of sun tan oil joined the growing olfactory soup in Justin’s cell.
The miracle was happening, and Justin didn't want to miss it.
"I didn't hear nothing about any rain. What station you listenin' to on that little crappy Sony of yours?" Danny asked.
The pipers cried out to him.
"Please. I wanna go out."
"Justin..."
"They're takin’ me to court tomorrow you know that?" Justin asked.
"Yeah, I know."
"They’re gonna take me into court like I was an adult and kill me. My Gramps brought me in a long time ago to get them to bring me to a doctor. He thought there was something wrong with me onna count I killed Kenny Frasier. I saw one doctor for five minutes, who said I was well enough to be locked away in jail. All my Gramps wanted was to get me some help, or he woulda never brought me in when he figured out I killed Kenny," Justin said.
"I know all that, Justin," Danny said.
"Did you know my Gramps died yesterday? Ma said his ticker couldn't take the heartbreak of me seeing the chair 'cause he turned me over when all he wanted was to make me well. Did you know all that?" Justin said, tears starting to press against his eyes.
"Yeah, I know."
"Then let me out to see the sun for Christmas sakes. I want out!" Justin yelled, banging his pudgy fist against the cold, un- giving door.
"Alright! Give me a sec to see if Roscoe's at the desk. If he's away, I'll slip you out," Danny hissed.
"Hurry. They're comin'," Justin said.
"What?" Danny asked.
"Nuttin'."
"No one's comin' to try and bust you out, are they?" Danny asked.
"Gramps is dead. No one cares," Justin said.
"Get your coat," Danny said.
Danny's boots retreated down the hall.
Outside, the waves of sand crashed silently against the more crowded middle section of the parking lot. Sandpipers trotted away from the liquid rush of the sand like toys with over-wound springs. A lifeguard’s whistle undulated on the wind driven before the ocean of sand.
Justin hated to lie to Danny, but he would never understand the miracle.
It was Gramps that told him about the pipers.
"They run away from the water like that because they’re afraid of being taken to the secret place," Gramps said on their final summer trip to the Jersey shore. "Secret place?" Justin asked.
Gramps was squinting against the sun so Justin couldn't tell if the old man was kidding him. Gramps was good at spinning yarns. One of the reasons he liked Justin was that the boy almost always believed his stories. Gramps had other grandchildren about Justin's age, but none of them listened to his stories—true or false—like Justin did.
Even on the family trip to Bradley Beach, Justin avoided the scorn of his siblings and cousins to play with Gramps.
Gramps never seemed to mind.
"Ever hear the story of the Pied Piper, Justin?" Gramps asked, taking a sideways glance at the boy.
"No, Gramps," Justin said. He didn't know any stories he didn't see on Monday Night RAW.
"Well, this piper fella got mad at a town cause they didn't pay his bill for cleaning out all the rats, so he blew his tin whistle and led all the kids in town to this secret place where their parents couldn't find 'em. He wouldn't let 'em out until he got paid. Those birds running away from the water like it'll singe their tail feathers are named after the Pied Piper fella. They’re called sandpipers."
Gramps said this with a satisfied twist of his thick eyebrows. Justin smiled and took brief notice of the way his grandfather's large girth spread the aluminum pipes supporting the arm rests of his beach chair.
"You're getting fat, Dad," Justin's Mom would say, trying to be funny.
Gramps always shook off his family's casual cruelty.
"More of me to love," he would say.
Justin agreed. He loved Gramps’s big tummy and soft lap. When he was younger, Justin would sit on his grandfather's lap and watch TV while the old man dozed.
"Climb on board, sonny," Gramps would say, patting his large thigh.
It was like sitting on his Aunt's beanbag chair, but better because Gramps was warm and smelled of pipe tobacco and Smith Brothers’ cough drops.
Now, Danny led Justin to the exercise yard, which was really the rear loading bays for deliveries and where the dumpster was. The town never had to hold anyone for as long as they held onto Justin so they put a chain on the tall, iron-bar fence and put Justin out once a day to get air like his neighbors did with their dog.
It was yesterday when Justin got the news that Gramps was dead. Gramps was dead and the sandpipers started their run. Last night, when he couldn't sleep, he realized the sandpipers had come to take him to the secret place. There, Gramps waited with all the rats and the kids from the town that was in his story, Hamlin.
They were going to take him away to where Gramps was until the Dix Trix Turnkey gets some doctor help for Justin like Gramps wanted.
Roscoe was not at the desk. Danny returned with the cell key. They walked down the gloomy, inclined hallway leading to the rear checkpoint. Danny's scuffed uniform shoes clicked on the green and white-checkered linoleum, the sound bouncing around the causeway with a moist patter.
"Why so anxious today, Justin?" Danny asked.
Justin looked up at the tall, red-faced man. He knew his quick glance looked a little guilty.
"I wanna get outside. I was bored. I don't know. I just hate that room," Justin said.
"Better get used to it. Your next guards aren't going to let you out for extra recreation time."
"Are you going to be mean to me too? I thought you weren't mean," Justin said, turning away from Danny.
"The sooner you get used the idea that your life is going to be played by other people's rules the better off you'll be," Danny said.
"Just take me outside."
They passed the check-out desk; Danny didn't say anything more as he opened one of the two big emergency doors leading to the dumpster area. Justin passed through the door first into the stinking, stiff air around the big green dumpster. Danny followed him into the exercise yard.
A basketball hoop was bolted onto one of the brick face walls. A painted foul line was nearly worn off the broken asphalt.
The great tide of sand moved across the parking lot. Its movement was loud and violent now as it reached the heart of the parking area. The determined flow of sand crashed against the cramped line of cars belonging to county employees working in the building.
Sandpipers flew over the break point of the waves, calling the waves on toward the courthouse with pleading peeps. The sound of roller blades on the boardwalk fought against the screaming of seagulls. Neither could touch the shy peep of the pipers.
Justin was not su
rprised when Danny did not react to the coming wall of sand. He knew now that no one else could see the miracle.
"Not a very nice day out here, Justin. Not worth leaving your bed for, I'd say," Danny said, steam shooting from his bulbous, red nose.
"Air feels better here," Justin said, watching the waves of sand pour over the second-to-last row of cars.
"Danny!" Came an angry bark from behind them.
Roscoe Briggs, daytime watch commander, stood in the exit doorway, almost filling it with his big frame. His usually red face and neck were purple with anger.
"What the hell you doing, Officer Madlock? It's not that thing's out-time!" Roscoe yelled.
His deep voice cut the cold air, rumbling through Justin's head, causing him to flinch.
"He wanted to get out early. I just thought..." Danny started.
"Thought? Since when do you make your bread and butter with your brain, Madlock?" Roscoe bellowed.
"I..."
"Get in here! I want to talk to you," Roscoe said, making space for Danny to pass.
"What about him?" Danny asked, sheepishly.
"Cuff the tard to the fence and get in here!" Roscoe yelled, pointing at the iron bar fence with meaty finger.
"Sorry, Justin. I'll be right back. You should know that cuffing you like this ain’t strictly code, but few things around here are…" Danny started, unable to finish. He locked one ring of his handcuffs around Justin's small wrist and leading him to the black vertical bars of the fence.
Danny locked the empty manacle onto the fence and turned to leave. Justin stopped him with a gentle touch on his uniform parka.
"Don't worry. It's okay now. Everything's going to be okay," Justin said, looking away to the roaring crash of the sand.
Just above the rumble of the waves floated aggressive strands of an Aerosmith song, coming from the arcade down the boardwalk.
Sand beat against the last row of cars now, twenty feet from the iron fence. Sandpipers ran back and forth in front of the fence like nervous waiters.
Like angry wrestlers stalking the ring.
Danny spoke from behind Justin.
"Justin, you wouldn't...?"
"Madlock!" Roscoe yelled.
Roscoe's voice grabbed at Danny the way Gramps’s barbed fishing hook worked on a trout, pulling him limp and helpless back toward the courthouse.
Justin heard Danny's receding footsteps for only a moment before the roar of the sand ocean drowned all sound. Justin smelled the rotting tang of the dumpster just before his nostrils were over-taken with the electric smell of salt water and roasting beach sand, followed closely by the scent of dead sea life drying at the high tide mark.
The steel hurricane door slammed with a bang.
Justin flinched but didn't turn. He knelt in front of the fence and pressed his round face to the four-inch space between bars. He put his hand through the fence and reached for the tidal sands. The iron bars were rusted and cold, but the tip of Justin’s fingers could feel the warmth of summer.
The sands first appeared two weeks ago, but Justin didn't know what they meant until last night.
Justin had woken to his quiet cell. His grandfather sat on the unused bunk across from Justin.
"Hello, boy," Gramps said. His voice was warm and husky.
"Gramps? They said..."
"That I was dead. Yeah, in one way I am, but in another way I'm here right now talking to you. I came to tell you about the pipers," Gramps said, leaning forward on his thick knees.
"Why are they here? Why did they bring sand instead of water? Why...."
"I can't answer all your questions. I can tell you this....when the sand gets far enough, you go ahead and touch it, get in it, roll around. It's here for you. It's here to take you away from this place, this factory of vengeance. You touch it when you can, understand?" Gramps asked, raising a grave finger.
"Yes, sir," Justin nodded.
"Good boy. I'm sorry I got you in this mess. That boy didn't deserve to die. What you did was wrong, but I don't think you know that—at least not the way you should. I had them send the sandpipers so you won't have to hurt anymore, won’t have to wait while the lawyers make you sizzle on the back burner for years. Mercy, sonny, that’s what the pipers are about. When it comes, reach for it...reach for it, boy..."
Then Justin had really woken to his dark, empty cell and cried for his Gramps.
Now, Justin reached for the gentle wash of the sand ocean. It fanned out close to the fence, scaring the sandpipers through the bars in a manic chorus of peeps.
"Climb on board," Gramps would say when he wanted a young Justin to sit in his lap.
A sand wave washed across the blacktop in a gentle hiss. A starfish touched the tip of Justin’s sneaker. The frothless waves covered Justin's finger and splashed up against the black iron fence. The rear parking lot undulated warmly, a moving desert, a living tan ocean.
Justin started to go numb. He was no longer scared about going to real prison where he would wait for years to die. Justin had thought too long already about what he’s done without making any sense of it. He was a broken boy who was just no good to this Gramps-less world.
Just Justin, that’s all. Just Justin. Ugly dumby.
"Climb on board," Gramps's voice said in his head.
His constant awareness of his difference from the rest of humankind dissolved. Justin didn't feel the cold March air of Mechanicville, but the baking summer sun touching his skin. He no longer smelled the putrid decay of the dumpster, but sun tan oil and hot dogs.
His stomach was washed clean of the burning acid feeling that had sat there since they brought him in for questioning last June. Justin knew it was not like the cold satisfaction when he split open Kenney Frasier's head. The feeling he had now was relaxing and warm, spreading throughout his being.
"Climb on board, sonny," Gramps said.
The next wave crashed through the iron fence in a roar, knocking Justin out of his handcuffs, taking him as the relentless undertow pulled the amebic arm back into the ocean of sand. A riptide of silicon pulled Justin under, covering him like his mom’s angora comforter. The sand pulled and hugged, finally kissed. The darting tongue filled Justin. For a moment there was burning. His lungs burned. Then there was light.
***
It would be a day before a mostly empty New Jersey beach would be visited by a drifting form, washing ashore and left to rot at the high tide mark. It would be an afternoon before an aging relative of a New York State assemblyman and his dog, Sparticus, found the bloated body of a boy on Bradley Beach, just a stone’s-throw north of Asbury Park. It would be the rest of the cold, drizzly day into bitter evening before police got done with the scene; the boy stripped of his seaweed tu-tu and zipped into a bag. It would be that night when the county coroner dropped his coffee on the morgue floor when an aggravated sandpiper emerged from the body bag with an indignant peep. The boy remained and was identified as escaped killer Justin Phillips from upstate New York, but the bird disappeared from the unremarkable blue tile and stucco municipal building when a detective left a door open. It would be a frigid night into a tardy sunrise that The Rock on Good Morning New York denounced child-on-child violence and shrugged-off, with mighty movements of immense shoulders, questions about pro-wrestling’s potential effects on young viewers.
This sordid tale first appeared in the pages of Dark Moon Digest. I originally wrote it so I could enter it in a flash fiction contest. I didn’t win, but I kept tinkering with the story. Eventually, it found a much better home. And now here it is, stuck in the asylum. Ah, the twists and turns of cruel, cruel fate. Kind of like the life of poor old Norm (there’s that guy again!).
COMMANDMENT ELEVEN
A sparrow sang just outside the basement window and it almost made Norm’s heart break. He could still smell the sharp, sulphuric odor of burnt matches riding hard over the musty pall of the cramped underground room.
He strained to catch the tune of a song as it warbled
from the transistor radio he’d left on upstairs. Was it Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett? What he wouldn’t give to be up there with that radio. Man, that voice sounded like heaven.
Since the incident, he loved just about any sound; the kids fighting, garbage trucks, the buzzing of a curious bee. The thought of losing all of those delicious, everyday melodies sickened him with dread. Acidic rivulets of bile hit the back of his teeth and seeped from the corners of his mouth. Instinctively, he went to wipe it away but his hands were held fast by duct tape.
There was a shuffling of slipper-clad feet on the unfinished floor and a stack of old wood boxes went clattering to the ground.
“Son of a biscuit eater!” his wife Chastity yelled.
God, even her infantile cusses (because good Christians don’t cuss) were glorious to hear.
“Didn’t I tell you to move these somewhere else? You do have working legs and arms, don’t you? Just because I’ve made you right with Jesus doesn’t mean you’re right with me.”
Norm could only hang his head, silently savoring every last moment of aural clarity.
What made him answer that phone?
It wasn’t like he could speak; not for some time now.
They’d been married about a year, both of them working night and day on the remote Pennsylvania farm that her father had willed them, when Chastity saw him talking to that pretty girl who’d wanted to know if she could take some pictures for a college project she was working on.
At dinner that night, Chastity had doped his milk, cut off his tongue with the same butcher knife she had just used to carve their chicken and cauterized the gaping wound with a metal spatula she had heated over a burner.
“I saw you,” she’d hissed. He’d been too drugged to answer, not drugged enough to be numb to the searing pain. “Now you’ll learn.”
He stared in horror at his tongue, sitting in the middle of the remains of his dinner, a dollop of gravy on the tip, mashed potatoes and peas scattered across the bloodied surface. Consciousness faded in and out. His mind had been unable to fully grasp the reality of what had just transpired.