by J. R. Bowles
“Jackie it's good to see you again.” Zolar said approaching her.
Everyone was departing leaving Jackie, Bernie and Zolar there.
“Bernie are you all right?” Jackie said hugging him.
“You know I am.” Then turned to Zolar and pulled him into their hug.
“Zolar ....” Jackie and Bernie said simultaneously and then laughed.
“After you Jackie.” Bernie offered.
“No you go first.” Jackie said.
“No I insist, you first.” Bernie objected.
“Would one of you go first and quit bickering.” Zolar complained.
“Okay, I will. Since I haven't seen either one of you for awhile. I'm sorry about that but you will understand soon Zolar. I'm sure Bernie does, don't you?” Jackie said turning to Bernie.
He nodded and added an extra squeeze of confirmation.
“Zolar, it unexplainable. Everything you said was true but there's more.” Then he added solemnly. “Oh, so very much more but you'll understand when it's your turn.”
“Guys I know I've talked a good line but to be honest with you I'm scared.” Zolar admitted.
They hugged him tighter.
“It will be okay, Zolar.” Bernie comforted. “When your center opens you'll experience what everyone experiences but there's more. Like Jackie said, we can't describe it to you. There aren't any words that explain it but when it happens you will understand what we mean.”
Zolar shrugged his shoulders but nodded indicating he would be patient.
“It was the craziest thing I ever saw, Bernie. I was terrified.” Zolar said.
“Me too, and I've been through the opening but Bernie,” she paused and leaned back to stare into his eyes, “when I saw you I had no idea what was happening. I had no concept that you, you ... .”
Zolar interrupted. “Bernie you were dead, I mean dead. What was it like?”
“Before the opening the only thing I remember was a pain in my chest and then the center being opened. I can't describe the center. You'll see what I mean.” Bernie answered.
Zolar shook his head and said solemnly, “Bernie, he had split you open with that steak knife, “ and pointed toward the knife where Thomas had dropped it. “He must have broke your rib cage apart and cut out your heart.”
Bernie looked pensive for a moment and then said, “I don't--I didn't feel anything else until the center.”
“From a minister too, it's just to hard to believe he did what he did. I would believe it if I hadn't seen it. Blood was everywhere.” Zolar said.
“It looked gruesome.” Jackie interjected.
“Now what? There's only me and the Reverend left. Which one will I be?” Zolar asked.
“I don't know but it seems that your life's profession is directed by your center.” Bernie said.
Jackie nodded. “I'm a Radioman and that's communications but Bernie what do you do?”
He looked up at the ceiling and acted abashed. “I'm a cardiologist.”
They all laughed.
“Well Zolar since there's only two left and the preacher must be the spiritual center that only leaves the intellectual center which is the next one to open. So what is your line of work?” Bernie asked.
“I'm a physicist.”
“Well brain, tonight you join the club.” Bernie said lightly and then added, “then you too will truly understand.”
“Physics,” Jackie reflected thoughtfully. “It makes sense, the marriage of religion and science.”
Zolar shrugged.
“Let's join the party.” Bernie said and laughed. “Besides it's our room, and anyway Zolar you left your girlfriend.”
Zolar punched Bernie in the arm.
As they entered they recognized everyone else was there sitting around having a drink except Thomas Lamb who sat blankly on the couch void of all motor senses.
They got their self a drink and started to mingle.
“Here's to Lazarus,” Zolar offered his drink in the air in toast, and nodded to Bernie.
“Lazarus?” Bernie said turning to Jackie and raising his eyebrow.
“A Christian thing.” Jackie explained. “I believe Christ raised him from the dead after he had been dead for several days. I'm sure the Reverend Lamb could tell us if we could get him out of his stupor.” She raised her glass in toast and soon the entire room followed suit.
“Jamal, sweetie,” Mindy said rubbing his arm with her long red nail. “I've run out of cigarettes and I'm going to run out to pick up a pack. I'll be back in a few minutes. Do you want me to pick you up anything?”
“Baby, I can send Azid out for you.” Jamal offered.
“Oh no, that's okay. Besides I need to pick up some woman things and men hate to buy them for you.” She smiled.
“I'll go with you then Baby. It's not safe for a beautiful woman like you to be out on the street.”
“No,” she protested trying to think of a quick reason for him to not come along. She wanted to be alone. She had to plan her next strategy and more than anything else she wanted the energy of some unsuspecting soul. “You need to stay here. I'm sure that they've got a lot to talk about and besides they might not want to talk with me here. Since I'm not part of all this.” Then added with a smile, “besides I find all of this to deep for my simple little mind.”
“Okay but you be careful.” Jamal agreed.
“I won't have to go far.” Mindy said as she picked up her purse and left.
Jamal nodded at Azid and Azid came to his beckoning
“Azid follow her and make sure she's okay.” He ordered.
Azid nodded without comment and started after Mindy. As he left he found that she had already caught the elevator, so he decided to run down the stairs to catch up.
Maybe he should hang back, he thought. There was something strange about this little Indian woman. She was beautiful and nice, almost too nice and when she was near he had this feeling of hostility.
Azid entered the lobby just as Mindy was exiting the front rotating door. He would hang back and follow her.
He thought about the things that had been happening. He could understand why Jamal was acting different toward this white man. Him and Jamal would both be dead if it wasn't for John and then the man with his heart cut out. He had seen a lot of fights and blood in his life. Life on the streets was bad but he had never witnessed anything as gruesome as the preacher holding that heart. He shuttered at the memory.
Yes, he could understand Jamal's attitude towards the man named John but this Indian girl had Jamal pussy whipped. Jamal was so blinded by the girl’s pussy that he couldn't see past his dick.
As Mindy turned the corner she mentally felt Azid. “Good,” she thought, “yes follow me. You're just what I need. I knew Jamal would send his little pit bull to follow me. Well, well, you just come right along.”
Mindy had walked west on 34th keeping her pace moderate to insure Azid didn't loose her.
“Where is she going?” Azid thought. “She's already passed two places where she could buy cigarettes. She's up to something.”
Mindy turned into a half alley between two buildings. There had been an iron fence with a lock blocking the small entrance between the buildings. She placed her hand on the lock and it broke and fell to the concrete. She paused to make sure he saw where she was going.
What was she up to? He stopped in front of the gate peering into the shadows but she was not in sight. Azid reached to his ankle and pulled out his knife as he entered the darkness.
He moved slowly into the narrow crevice and as he crept deeper, he saw a shadow at the far wall where the alley stopped. It was a dead end and she must not be able to go any further. He couldn't figure why she was here unless she had seen him following her. Maybe that was it, he thought, she had seen him and lured him here. But why? She obviously liked black men, maybe she wanted him or then again maybe she had to go piss real bad.
“Mindy, it's Azid.” He called to identify himself.
“Are you all right? Jamal asked me to follow you to make sure nobody bothered you.”
“I'm fine Azid. I saw you following me and thought maybe you might want to be alone with me.” She spoke from the darkness, her voice warm and inviting, her tone alluring and seductive.
“I can't do that to my friend.” Azid protested but already he was excited by the expectations of her lovely body next to his.
“Azid, Jamal's my friend not my master, besides I think he's been taken in by these whites. He wasn't like that when I first met him but now I think they have some kind of spell over him. He's not like you Azid.” She flattered.
“What do you mean?” He answered, still not able to distinguish her features.
She moved closer to him to where her features could just barely be seen through faint distant glare of the street lights.
“You still hate them, Azid. You're like me. I hate them too.” She reached to touch his face ever so slowly. Her finger running softly along his jaw. She moved in close and placed her hand behind his head and drew his lips to hers.
Azid showed no resistance and slid his knife into his back pocket the handle sticking out. He pulled her close to him, his hands sliding underneath the back of her skirt finding to his thrill no undergarments.
Mindy moved her hands down his chest rapidly unbuttoning his shirt and grasped at his zipper working him free of his bindings.
Azid forced her against the wall his pants lowered to his knees. He used his knee to separate her legs and forced himself inward.
As he was about to enter her from the standing position Mindy cast a paralyzing energy over Azid. He crumbled to the ground in his half clothed state.
“You fool.” Mindy screeched standing over him. Azid's eyes staring up at her, her breasts jutting out. She bent over him and pulled his knife from his rear pocket.
Azid was unable to speak. Fear entered his eyes as she stood over him with his own knife.
Mindy's eyes gleamed in wicked delight as she took the knife and cut a shallow line down Azid's chest.
“I almost killed you today.” She laughed insanely. “You should have died then. It would have been a gentler death. Now you will suffer and wish you were dead. Before I'm finished you will wish the ground could swallow you up.”
“You fucking bitch,” Azid thought, as he silently screamed. His mind began to haze and slipped toward unconsciousness.
She paused the knife to where it's razor tip rested on his scrotum. She held his flaccid meat in her hand and took the knife and slit him from the base of his testicles up the length of his penis to that opening.
“You won’t lose consciousness,” she ordered. “I will keep you conscious. I need to bath in your pain, your sweet agony thrills me.”
His testicles dangled from their bag, falling loose on his leg. She took her free hand and crushed them together as if she were cracking English walnuts.
Azid's eyes began to fog over from the pain. His arms and legs unable to defend himself.
“God let me die.” He prayed silently.
Mindy felt her own energy increase as Azid's agony increased. Not yet, she thought. She severed the cord that had once held Azid's now crushed gonads and crammed them between his paralyzed lips.
Finally with a touch of mercy she took Azid's knife and placed the tip where his testicles had been and drove the blade slowly into the body cavity that laid beneath.
Azid's life energy departed him and Mindy drank in his soul energy like an alcoholic drinks in liquor.
How sweet his death had been. His agony had been so satisfying. Her only regret was that he had not been John.
She smiled as she took Azid's shirt and wiped the handle of the knife with it.
“John,” she thought, “your death will not be so gentle.”
Mindy headed back to the hotel but she didn't forget to get her cigarettes.
She opened the pack of Camels and took her first drag, cherishing the satisfaction of this night.
“Maybe the little fag will be next.” She chuckled aloud between clouds of smoke.
She smiled, she felt so satisfied, so satiated. “So much better than sex,” she thought.
Glancing at her watch she realized she had been gone for over an hour and would probably have to give Jamal an excuse.
While she walked beside the mounds of garbage left for morning pickup, she thought about what she would say to Jamal.
She would deny having ever seen Azid, even though she knew Jamal would send him to follow. Play the act, she thought. That's what she had done for so many years anyway, just play the act, she repeated to herself.
A rumble of moving cans and the rustle of debris caught her attention. Probably a rat in the trash, she assured herself.
“It sure would be nice if it were a kitten. That would be a perfect excuse to give Jamal. “Oh Jamal,” she practiced, “he's so cute and he was stuck in the trash and couldn't get out. I couldn't leave him, he's so precious, almost as precious as you.”
She laughed at her own antics. “I just had to save him.” As she stopped chuckling she heard a faint meow from the pile. Was it possible? Mindy moved around to the street side of the trash and found it's source.
There tangled with it's head stuck between the plastic of a six pack can carry, was a tiny bedraggled yellow and white kitten.
“Oh, poor baby,” Mindy soothed, “I'll save you.” She gently picked up the ball of fluff.
“I bet your tummy's so hungry, is that right?” She snuggled the bright eye babe to her bosom.
“And you stink, yes you do. You need a bath. Uh-huh, yes you do.”
Now she would have something to show Jamal as proof. But where had the poor little thing come from. In the short period of time she had been in New York she had never seen a stray animal, never. She had seen them on leashes and had seen rats, but no animals roaming free.
“Strange,” she thought, “oh well.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders.
“Let's go show you off. What do you think? Would that be nice?” She fingered the kittens mouth with her nail and watched it's sucking response. “Such a little biddy baby.” She cooed.
“What am I going to name you? What would you like?” Then smiled as she verified it's sex. “How about Azid?”
“Yes that's it. But I'll let it be Jamal's idea.”
With kitten in arms she headed back to the hotel, humming softly to it.
As Mindy stood outside of the hotel suite she heard them talking inside. Slowly she turned the knob and entered quietly without knocking so as to not disturb them.
Upon entry they turned and silently greeted her. Everyone except Zolar who was speaking to John as the rest of the group listened.
“... and that's about as much as I know about the opening of the centers.” Zolar paused and nodded a smile at Mindy and then turned back to John. “What our purpose is, I don't know, except to be there for your assistance. As to what your purpose is John, well I would say only you can answer that but probably not until the last center is opened.”
John listened intensely, periodically nodding in comprehension. He was beginning to grasp what had been happening and what was going to happen.
“Zolar, as I told you earlier, I'm here to promote my software. What I was wondering, is if you would go to the Coast Guard base with me for my last meeting? I don't know why but from what you tell me you're going to be the next center anyway. Of course that won't happen until midnight but I just have this feeling that you should go along?” John paused waiting for Zolar's answer.
“Sure John, I don't know what good I will be but if you want me to, well I would be happy to go along. Besides it might be fun to see where Jackie has to live.” He turned and smiled at Jackie.
“Good.” John said. “I guess we all need to turn in it's almost four and my meeting is at 1:00 this afternoon.”
Everyone became animated, stretching and yawning and started to head for their respective rooms.
Rudy had
left earlier when the talk became serious and he was no longer the center of attention. He had bid them all good night and had embarrassed Zolar when he had hugged him. Zolar apologized for the mix-up earlier in the evening and falsely insinuated that he would make it up to him.
“What about the preacher? He looks like he's out of it.” Billy asked as he scanned the group.
“Yeah and Jackie where are you sleeping and who have you been sleeping with?” Bernie asked accusingly.
“I've been sleeping with Billy.” Jackie stared at Bernie as if to dare him to make any crude remarks.
Bernie decided not to challenge her glare. “Well why not move back in with us?”
“Wait just a minute. How about me?” Billy protested.
“Guys, guys, let's not bicker over little ole' me.” Jackie smiled radiantly basking in the attention. “Besides sleep is all we will be doing.”
Billy and Bernie both shrugged and Zolar laughed.
“I'll tell you what Jackie, you can have my room and I'll sleep on the couch. I've sort got use to sleeping on the couch.” Zolar offered.
“I think that solves all our problems.” Jackie agreed and grinned when Bernie and Billy snarled.
“Wait a minute what are we going to do with the preacher?” Bernie said.
“Bernie, seems to me like you to have become bosom buddies.” Zolar smiled. “He can sleep with you.”
Jackie and Billy laughed and Bernie sneered.
Bernie answered. “Well I guess somebody better keep an eye on him. When he comes out of this shock it's hard to say what he might do but I think I've spent enough time with him for awhile. What don't one of you volunteer.”
“I would do it,” Billy offered, “but I don't think it's to wise to have him that close to John with out constant supervision.”
“I guess you're right.” Bernie said and added shaking his head in mock humility. “Okay, he can have my bed and I'll just have to share the bed with Jackie. I tell you the things I'm am forced to do.”
“Wait just one minute.” Billy protested. “We're right back to where we started.”
“Listen, up guys, this is the way it is.” Jackie ordered before the argument started. “I plan on getting some sleep. So Billy you give me the key to your room and you will sleep in here with the rest of the guys. Understood?”