by Edward Es
Tom looks straight up toward the night sky, taking deeper breaths to calm himself. “Hold the world up? You’ve got to be kidding. Try... falling off the edge.”
“You know, I thought I owned the title in finding trouble. But I give up my crown to you. You not only find trouble, but if it’s not there, you conjure it up out of thin air!” Tom looks back down, expecting and deserving to take this round from Matt, who points at the Noah House.
“Take for instance, your little visit over there. Now why? Tell me why you had to do that to yourself. Especially now. You’re a tickin’ bomb, for chrissake. What’s the matter? Your fuse wasn’t burning fast enough?”
Tom whips around. “I had to face the enemy.”
Matt reflects back confusion, clouded with skepticism. “Face the enemy?”
“That’s right.” He looks at the Noah House. “But he wasn’t there.”
Matt rubs his eyes. “I see. That’s just great. So then you went right across the street here and made another one, or two, or three.”
Now Tom starts the pacing. Matt rides the swell, his efforts to dispel it losing ground. “You know what the term in scripture is for being pregnant?” Tom asks. “It’s being ‘great with child’. Did she look to you like she was ‘great with child’?” Tom walks a few yards down the center of the street toward the darkness, winding up tighter. “Isn’t this ‘lovely’ world hard enough to drag yourself through without your own mother reaching into her womb and trying to get at you during what should be the safest part of your life?”
Tom shakes a terrifying gesture with his arm and closed fist. Matt can barely speak. “Good God, Tom. You paint some pretty nice scenes for yourself.”
“Nice, huh? That’s how I go through life. It’s like a bad movie, one horrible scene after another. And you know what? I can’t walk out. Somebody’s holding my eyes open, and I have to watch it all, and none of it makes any sense. Look at this.” He stands in the street, pointing to each side with his arms outstretched. “Two struggles for life, one on each side of the street. One before birth, one after.”
“Who ever said any of it has to make sense?”
“You know when the wheels really started coming off for me? Remember Jessica McClure, the little girl who fell down the well?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“The whole world came to her rescue. Everybody was hanging on the edge of their seats at the six o’clock news, and so they should have been. I was on my knees along with everyone else. And bless her heart, she made it.” Tom fights back tears. “But you know what else was on the six o’clock news that night? Halfway across the country in a dirty, filthy building in New York City, a little girl was tied to a chair, beaten until she was brain dead by a drug addict father who walked out the door to find a fix.” Tom turns to Matt, his eyes glazed over. “Where was the whole world for her? Who was on their knees for her?”
Matt is speechless. “Don’t you see?” Tom begs.
Silence.
Matt gathers up a response. “Like I said, where’s it written it has to make any sense?” He walks up, nose-to-nose. “You know who the guy is that it all makes ‘sense’ to? The one who has it all figured out? He’s the one down in some jungle someplace that poisons himself and takes nine hundred people with him. And you know what? You know what, Tom? He has no trouble at all findin’ people to go with him. Because if they don’t have it all figured out themselves, they figure he does.”
This time Matt walks to the center of the street and, holding his arms up, turns a complete circle. “Look around, Tom. Does this look like A Wonderful Life to you? Does this look like Bedford Falls?” He walks back up to Tom. “Do you think you’re George Bailey, and everything is supposed to come out OK in the end?” Tom looks into Matt’s eyes. “Every time a bell rings, pal, it doesn’t mean an angel gets her wings.”
Tom softens. “You sure about that?”
“When I was a kid, my daddy’d come home most every night, and he’d ask me questions ‘til he found a reason to slap me around. There was always a good enough reason, just like clockwork. And guess what? It got to where while he was beatin’ on me, it felt good. Know why? Because I figured it just couldn’t possibly get any worse than this.” This time Tom is listening, and hearing.
“I think that’s the way people should look at life when they step in a pile of it.” Matt puts his arm around Tom, trying to get a rise out of him, with little success. He’s close though. “You know what my philosophy of life is?”
“I’m afraid to ask,” he says, facing down.
“When I die, make damn sure they bury me face down.” Tom looks up at him. “That way the whole world can kiss my ass.”
Tom can’t help but give a head shaking smile. “That’s a hell of a philosophy, Matt.”
“Isn’t it? Makes a lot of ‘sense’, don’t it?”
Tom blinks a couple of times. “You really know how to cheer a guy up.”
Matt pushes Tom toward his horse. “Go on. Ride off into them canyons. There must be some poor critter out there you can pick a fight with.” Tom mounts his horse, but not before surprising Matt with a swift but strong bear hug, Matt’s uneasiness with affection heightened by a sense of farewell. Tom rides off into the enveloping night as Matt shudders quietly from a chill of sorrow that passes through him.
Towering cliffs become but jagged black edges around the dark horizon as the widening canyon follows the Virgin River downstream. They strike sharp contrast to a sky so thick with stars that star shadows, cast by clouds as they drift by, offer welcome relief to the eye. There’s a small hill in the middle of this vast openness to the top of which climb a horse and rider, silhouetted by the bright night sky. A full Moon is about to rise, heralded by a ghostly radiance that shimmers and pulses through the windy, cold air. Then the edge breaks, a searing white wedge between cliff and heavens.
Horse and rider are cast against the stars, watching the rising Moon, a flattened, wobbling ball, crushed by the atmosphere. Tom stands in the stirrups, tilting his head back as the wind whips him.
A fading campfire sparks and crackles in the frost-air as Tom, bedded down, pokes at it with a stick, trying to keep it alive. Occasionally a wisp of snow whirls by and the wind carrying it cuts through the sleeping bag. Tom sings softly, under his breath,
Soap soap soap
On a little Lucy Lucy,
Makes for a very clean girl.
He drops the stick and rolls over on his back, propping on his elbows to look up. The Moon hid behind a billowing cloud as it broke the horizon, its piercing brightness spraying a fluorescent edge around the darkening thunderhead.
Soup soup soup
And a stack of soda crackers,
Makes for a very fine meal.
Exhausted from a long and trying day, Tom lays his head down and quiets. Then, falling asleep,
And sun sun sun,
Early in the mornin’,
Makes for a very bright world.
Tom closes his eyes and drifts away. From his shoes upward, a sharp edge of moonlight advances as the cloud moves onward. When it cuts across his face, he squints from the threshold of an approaching dream, then falls into deeper sleep.
Overhead, a blinding full Moon overtakes the sky.
The Virgin River and the Watchman
Facing The Enemy
CHAPTER TWO
I looked straight up, before my eyes
The tempest parted wide!
I pointed to the patch of stars,
Each one, His beacon, bright.
I wished and wished upon those stars
That I could sail to them,
And then the words came back to me
Like music from her poem.
“Hope is the thing with feathers,”
Emily said to me.
She taught me in my secret soul
&n
bsp; That anything could be.
Just then an eagle white as light
Descended from the stars.
Her beating wings spoke words to me,
Her eyes were crimson fire.
“The wind you fear will lift us up,”
She beat as she flew by.
“The lightening flash that blinded you
Shall truly light our way.”
She landed softly in my boat
And spread one perfect wing,
A downy sail to catch the wind,
Emily’s feathered thing.
“Hold on!” The wing sang as it took
The storm into its fold,
Then lifted us up to the stars,
Away from nightmares’ hold.
This One whose hand from dust did form
Me like I was His very own,
Is He a child who wishes on
The stars He spun from Heaven’s throne?
Does He love Emily like me?
Does His imagination run,
To feathered wings that beating, speak
Of hopes and dreams as yet to come?
Deep night at the Tijuana beach house. Waves lap in the darkness, foam-fans patterning in the light of a waning Moon, a Moon over a different time. There are no other houses for a mile either way; an isolated strand, pushed up against a vast sea of despair.
A yellow porch light glows through the open bedroom window, bringing with it soothing sounds of waves and the healing scent of warm saltwater. A gentle but steady sea breeze billows tattered sheers from the window, reminding Tom, sitting up in bed while Francine sleeps restlessly, of the wooden sailboat he had as a child. As the sheers dance quietly in and out of the light, he drifts away to the shelter of old and comforting memories.
This respite is shattered by the chilling scream of a boy in a bedroom down the hall. The child is begging.
“No! No! Don’t let them do it!”
Tom bolts out of bed as his wife groans and turns over.
Noah’s room, with shades drawn, is darker, but the dim light from a lamp in the form of an angel praying falls upon the desperate boy. Noah is sitting up, rocking fore and aft, clutching a pillow, crying. His features are not visible, but the tears running down his cheeks are.
“Don’t let them! Don’t!” Tom runs in and embraces his son, holding him close and rocking with him. “Daddy! Daddy! Don’t let them!”
“Shhh. Shhh. It’s all right, scooter. Daddy’s here now.”
Noah’s gaunt fear looks up at his father. He panics, searching the room. “Theo? Theo! Where’s Theo?”
Tom finds Theo, a hug-worn bear on the floor by the bed, and gives him to Noah. Clutching Theo tight, Noah looks around again, worried and crying. “The Book! The Book!”
“Which book, Noah? Which one?”
“The Sazi Book, Daddy. Daddy get it!”
Tom looks around and finds a large, handmade, age-old book on the nightstand next to the angel lamp and gives it to Noah, who collects it with the bear and falls into his father, rocking with him again. The sobbing quiets to soft whimpers and little gasps for breath.
“Don’t let them. Please? Daddy?”
“What is it, son? Don’t let them what?”
“Don’t let them put me under the ground.”
When Tom realizes what his boy said, his heart is pierced, run through with a sword of impossible pain. How can such a small boy accept what he cannot? Tom’s eyes squeeze shut as he takes this blow, and when they open again, the room is a blurred kaleidoscope of torment. In a futile gesture, he says, “Noah, honey, you’re not going to—”
“Daddy, promise me you won’t let them! Promise me!”
It’s no use. Tom bites his lip, barely able to speak. “I promise. I promise I won’t let them.”
“I can just be in my room. Me... and, and Theo. And the Book. OK?”
“OK. I promise.”
Tom rocks with him harder, no longer able to hold back the tears. Resting his head on the little shoulder, he cries, “I promise I won’t let them.”
Tom tosses, rolling back and forth in the throes of a nightmare. A thin dusting of night snowfall covers him and the ground, strangely lit rose-pink from the hues of a spreading twilight sky. Zion struggles his way out of the sleeping bag and darts a few feet away, looking back.
Tom moans. “I promise I won’t let them. I promise.”
He springs to a sitting position, eyes still shut tight. There’s never any manageable wakening from this dream, one he’s forced to relive with cruel regularity. The Sun’s molten edge breaks the horizon, forcing Tom to squint and turn his head. He peels his eyes open only to be blinded until he holds his hand up, looking around at familiar surroundings, trying to shake off the wounds of another bad night. He looks down at the snow around him and runs his hand through it, smearing his face.
As he wipes his eyes, the sight of animal tracks in a perfect circle around his sleeping bag halts him. Tom looks closer, realizing they’re cat prints, too large to be Zion’s. He nearly falls over extricating himself from the sleeping bag and jumps out of the circle, looking back at it, then away. He takes a second look, and starts collecting his gear.
The Sun is also rising above a Mexican jungle, but less obviously and one hour further along. There’s a clearing in the jungle a few yards from a remote dirt road, five miles south of Zihuatanejo, a village on the north curve of the bay of the same name. A mini RV is parked in the clearing with a plain white cargo trailer hitched to the bumper. The trailer is taller than it is long or wide, void of any markings and spotless, in sharp contrast to the vehicle that towed it there. All is quiet until a cellphone bleeps inside the RV.
Alberto is awakened by the phone resting in its charger a few feet away. He gropes, knocking it onto his head.
“Que lastima!” he complains as he fumbles for the phone, strains to see the buttons, then pushes one. “Bueno, diga... Oh, hello.” He sits up to attention. “Yes, Doctor. I’m fine. No, no, I was almost awake.”
Kirshner stares at a screen displaying data in scroll movements. It’s the only illumination in the room, casting a rolling glow on his exhausted face. “Alberto, you are to proceed with Phase Three at 1530 Zulu. That is 0930 A.M. your time. Do you copy?”
Alberto’s voice falters over the speaker phone. “You mean, 1530, today?”
“Affirmative.”
“But, I thought—”
“I’m sorry, my friend, there’s no time to explain. 1530 today.”
Alberto turns to look at a clock. Puzzled, he responds, “Yes sir, I understand.” He stares at the phone, then presses the disconnect button. He looks at the clock again and falls out of his cramped bunk, knocking over the bottle of Tequila left on the floor. Still dressed from the night before, he body-irons the rumpled Guns ‘n Roses T-shirt with his hands, then tries to flatten his cockatiel night-hair in a small cracked mirror. “Aye, mommi,” Alberto laments.
Sam occupies one of the Holmes three “guesthouses”, each secluded from the other by the fact they were carved out as elegant caves into three separate faces of the butte upon which the main house sits, only the individual glass walls opening to the outside. They connect to the main house through converging tunnels, but also have outside access by a path leading down from the narrow terrace in front of the glass.
Sam lays sprawled upside down on the bed, flat on his back, his arms over his head, his feet propped up on the headboard. The phone rings in the other room and he’s instantly on his feet walking through the door, still asleep, one eye half-open. The Looney Tune boxers fit him figuratively, if not actually. “YEAH! Yeah, I’m coming!” he bellows, sleep-talking.
He partially wakens, opening the door to the terrace. As the ringing continues, he realizes it’s the phone and turns, looking around to find it in its usual place, hanging on the wall. Sam lumbers over
, giving the impression he does indeed have a hard time moving on land. He snatches the phone from its cradle. “What!” Sam looks around as the world begins taking shape for him again. “Doc? What the heck time is it, anyway?… Right now? What’s the matter?”
He scratches his behind. “All right, all right, I’ll be right there. You talk to Tom?… OK. Bye.” Sam slams the phone into the holder and it promptly bounces out. The second time he’s a little more precise. “Sufferin’ succotash!”
Morning mist still hugs the valley floor, but up on the bluff the air is clear and fresh. Cirrus poses majestically at the edge as Tom looks over a sweeping view of his land, breathing in the smell of wet red dirt. He pulls a cellphone from his saddlebag, dismounts, walks over to a large flat rock and sits on it. After thinking and rethinking, he presses in a number. Clicks and buzzes precede the ringing tone.
Seated on a couch, staring outward through a picture window at waves crashing on a speckled granite sea wall, is the figure, from behind, of a poised blond woman. On the West Coast, the first light of day has crept in, forcing a barely perceptible distinction between the gray overcast and the insipid ocean, a distinction she cares little about. Even at this early hour she’s perfectly dressed, coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Only from a reflection in the glass is her featureless face visible, partly in shadow, without expression. On an end table a foot or so from her, a designer phone rings softly. She sets the coffee down, removes an earring, and answers.
“Hello?” she almost whispers.
Francine Whitewater-Holmes never remarried. Nor did she return to life. Tom turned his torment outward and built an empire, using his pain as the engine. Francine collapsed inward and retreated to the house at Pismo Beach. She has found no answers and, for that matter, asks no more questions. There’s a point at which even self-pity brings no comfort and the only thing left to do is let go of the tiller and drift. Francine spends endless days watching those waves, at times crashing on the rocks behind the force of a storm, at others rising and falling over them with the tide. In either case, they mean the same. The relentless erosion and tearing down of once solid matter. After a long silence, a distant voice.