Down Jersey Driveshaft (Book One of the Diesel Series 1)

by William J. Jackson

  "When will you learn to take it like a man?" she asks as, out of nowhere, the tip of a nightstick jabs into Benny's side. He can feel his spleen swell. Vision blurs as he clutches his left side and falls to the floor under the assault of one, two, three strikes to the lower back. He sees stars, hears the crunchy glass propeller blades whirring right outside the door as if they were directly in his ears, grinding away the drums.

  "Escape isn't possible in Motherville. Only re-engineering."

  Benny doesn't know what it means. He only registers pain and panic. He sees the clean white flats on the Nurse's stocking feet, and realizes the past is occurring all over. This is a nightmare, a slick one that floats in like a warm blanket over a cold body, before a hand snatches it away and tosses you, naked and dizzy, into a blizzard.

  Slicks. Is this the Slicks?

  "Will you ever know?" Nurse spits as the nightstick comes down at Haskin's face to make the world go dark.

  He jumps out of the old chair, cold sweat on his palms and temple. Benny looks around in a fit like a mad dog. He's in the old room he has rented in Salem. Touches the walls to be sure. Yes, they're real. He gulps and scours the chair until he finds the bottle of Coca Cola. Drinking its final drops tastes better than love.

  He paces the little hotel room, hands on hips, while assessing his mental state. Terrified eyes rapidly regress into the tiny slits and foggy vision that cry for more sleep. He checks a clock on the wall, a round white face with black rim signals the time at three forty-two in the morning.

  Fifteen minutes, he gripes in his head. I only slept fifteen minutes.

  Fear in Benny's heart makes it pump like mad. But the body craves rest. He returns to the chair, lowering the Coca Cola bottle until it hits the floor and rolls on its side. The room fades in, fades out.

  Stupid Slicks. Save the war for tomorrow…

  Meanwhile - -

  The hand on Johnny's leather-strapped watch points to the fact that he is a very late man. The missus wanted him back home on Elm Street hours ago, but Johnny isn't the kind of guy to let that spoil a good night. Having recently moved to Salem, New Jersey from Arkansas, Johnny finds the nightlife here to be much more to his liking. Salem County has good bars, good air and fine women. The wife can wait, especially since she has a new house to keep her busy.

  Johnny's hand slides off the door of the Fenwick Theater as the owner shoves him and his buxom friend outside. West Broadway is as quiet as a funeral parlor this cold December of 1944. Johnny has a little too much drink in him, as does his lady friend, but she insists on going home right away.

  Her husband isn't so patient.

  Leaving Johnny in a lurch leaves the buff blond man pouting like a child. He comforts himself with the red glow and harsh perfume of a cigarette as he turns about to begin the walk back to real life. The wind is whipping up something fierce, causing Johnny to grip his thin jacket close to his neck, and quicken his pace.

  It's in front of the narrow alley between the drugstore and the bank that he encounters an old friend.

  No sooner has Johnny stepped in front of the alley does a familiar voice call out to him from the shadows.

  "Johnny? Aren't you Johnny Parker, called Jokin' Johnny back in Arkansas?"

  Now, Johnny's a louse, but generally speaking not a fool. He isn't accustomed to meeting people in a dark alley late at night. Some sense remains in him from good ol' Mom and Dad, after all. But the voice reminds him of a man, a mentor, Johnny has only said goodbye to months before. Why would he be here, and creeping in the dark like Peter Lorre?

  "Professor Lark?" Johnny yells, realizing maybe he is more drunk than tipsy. He takes a slow step into the darkness.

  "Yes Johnny! Come here, I don't have much time! Things are moving quickly!"

  Johnny walks like a cat toward a dead mouse. The alley at least blocks the wind. Once the two men are face to face, Johnny Parker sees that it truly is Professor Arthur Lark, the man who taught Johnny everything about radio waves and signaling. "Wh-- what are you doing here? I thought you got transferred to the Special Technologies or whatever they're called in Philly?"

  Lark shakes Johnny's hand in a cold, logical manner. Johnny believes the old guy must have been in the alley for hours, because his hand was frigid. Lark casts his prodigal son a blank stare. "Oh John, I was well on my way by train to Philadelphia. But you see, a much better offer came my way."

  Johnny turns his head fast back to the alley's entrance as a roar went down the street. His heart skips two beats. "What was that?"

  "What was what, John?" the professor asks in a monotone inflection.

  "Sounded like a plane just flew down Broadway at ground level!" Johnny yells. "Maybe it's the wind getting worse, or a Nazi made it over here," he laughs in a nervous, cold way. Professor Lark stares at him. Correction, Professor Lark stares through Johnny Parker.

  "Perhaps that is merely our ride," the professor mumbles.

  "What's that?" Johnny asks, very annoyed now and moving into Lark's personal space. "Look Prof, I appreciate the surprise visit, but this ain't the time, you hear? Say what you gotta say so I can get on!" Johnny's suffering the initial effects of paranoid fear, but like most men, isn't about to admit it.

  "I'm here to offer you a much better position in life than the one you occupy in your government."

  Johnny almost spits. "What? You gone Red on me, Prof? Hah! I shoulda known this was some kinda joke. Fine! Lead the way, Stalin! I bet this new gig involves one of your old wild soirees with some fine young things! Hey man, I'm in!"

  A sudden bang, right on Johnny's heels, reverses his decision.

  Parker turns so fast he runs face first into the thing. It's not young, and it bores such an appearance as to make it the farthest from fine as anything could be. Johnny holds his now bloody nose to look up at the man, no, the statue. At least he believes it must be a statue. Nine feet in height, black as the alley's broad shadows except for one large red light, and a smaller green one beneath. The limbs are long like rake handles, tipped with scissors longer than Johnny's forearms. The smell of fuel ruptures his nostrils, the filthy stench of dirty grease. Johnny's rampant mind soon concludes this object cannot be a statue.

  Statues don't move.

  Johnny finds himself reduced to gurgling, to a stupefied behavior not usually in his wheelhouse. He turns to run, but crashes hard into the professor. Lark stares into the distant nowhere, no longer focused on his best student.

  "Oh, won't you come and work for us, John? You can do so much more in Motherville, honest you can."

  The statue never gives Johnny Parker time to answer, or even room to maneuver. It takes black digits, digits hidden beneath those scissors, and yanks John by his blond hair until his head is up and holds back to the point where he stands on his tiptoes.

  The other hand reaches into Johnny's gaping hole of a mouth, and wedges it open. From its black wrist, a capsule big enough to choke a horse slithers from a mucus colored gel and down Johnny's throat. He gapes and whines. Tears cloud vision while Johnny's stomach resounds in a series of tidal waves against a cracked wall.

  "Prof!"

  "Oh, John. When they gave me the job, I simply had to recommend my favorite pupil. You're like a son to me, and I couldn't live if you were on the other side of things, an enemy."

  Johnny Parker arguably never heard the final line of Lark's statement. Things are painfully spreading across his body, the way one can feel black widow's venom coursing along the bloodstream. He gets colder, life becomes a distant memory. As the things, whatever they are, extend beyond his neck and to the brain, he hears but one thing...the beeps.

  Beep beep beep beep beep beep...

  The beeps continue for a whole minute. After that, Johnny Parker never thinks about Salem, or his wife or other women or radios ever again. He only hears the soothing death tone of Motherville and her simple instruction.

  CONQUER THE COUNTY SEAT...CONQUER THE COUNTY SEAT…

  CONQUER THE COU
NTY SEAT...

  CONQUER...

  CONQUER...

  CONQUER...

  Chapter Three: The Smell of Memory

  The radio is trying to kill you!

  Benny wakes up in a cold sweat. Is he hyperventilating? He reaches over the narrow bed to grab a glass of water he had placed on the nightstand after one a.m. What time is it now?

  Three-twelve in the morning. So that means, what, less than two hours of sleep? No rest for the weary.

  Benny pulls his six-foot four farmer's body out of bed, a herculean task considering the three nights lacking in genuine sleep. He passes the huge oak Admiral radio on his way to the water closet, turning it on to the sweet sound of a war report.

  ...Allies continue push into Germany...

  ...race to reach Berlin before the Communist Army...

  News of the day goes in one ear and out the other. Benny washes his face and relieves himself at the same time, wishing he was snoring. He scratches, yawns like a bear of a man and brushes his teeth better than any dentist, a fine-toothed combing.

  The room is cold and the radiator refuses to compromise, so Haskins pulls on the thermal underwear before layering with a flannel dress shirt and gray trousers. He combs back and lightly greases brown hair tinged gray from one part age, two parts stress. A weary old bugger turns into a handsome middle-aged man for another day.

  Out the creaky door he strides, long skinny legs moving a powerful upper body forward and to the double door outside. He grabs a long wool pea coat, borrowed from a kind fellow when they hit town three days back, and gallops out into the world.

  The world he exists in at this point is Salem City, a corner of Americana nestled in the cow fields and corn rows of Salem County, New Jersey. Benny and his family still call it Down Jersey, a place much better than the northern part of the state due to its more down-to-earth people. They can have their cities; country air is what I need, even if it is cold and heavy.

  He considers this with a great deal of self-denial, because Salem represents a foul memory in Benny's mind. He woke up here after the war, the first one to rock the globe, after a long sea voyage, a pilot suffering severe burns and broken bones at war's end. He came out of delirium to find he was no longer in Europe, but in Down Jersey, the Ford Hotel on Market converted to a hospital for returning soldiers. A colonial town with some pretty fine nurses, bricks and bombshells. Then the hell began, and dragged on forever.

  But, that was the last war, twenty-five years ago. The boy had become a man since then. He could walk these streets again, no problem. After all, there was work to be done. His piloting skills were in dire need. The country had been invaded, and its citizens were completely unaware. Heck, even Benny couldn't believe the mess he was in, and he had seen it up close.

  He had purpose again, one beyond raising poultry on Mister Harmon's farm. The sky was his real home, soaring in a metal bird spitting bullets at bad men, and now bad things. A few days ago, an Italian woman literally kicked in his front door, screamed for a pilot, and carted him away in her souped up Chevy Stylemaster. The kid's only good quality being she suffers from remarkable cuteness (well, okay, she's a mean mechanic too). At first, Benny was averse to the whole thing, until his eyes saw a new and terrible reality.

  So, given three days to rest by the new group he had been inducted into, Special Technologies (with some military connections he deemed suspicious, but vital to the current situation), Benjamin Haskins tried to acclimate to Salem, to get rid of the demon that has rested on his shoulders for more than two decades.

  He spent those first three days locked in his hotel room.

  Today he finally broke free, more from agitation than bravery. The city is bustling with folks going their way to work, to gossip, to eat. Eating is on Benny's mind. Three days of confinement meant he ate nothing, and now the stomach roared. His old brown shoes clip down the notched red brick sidewalk that gives the city a modern Revolutionary War atmosphere. He half feels the Redcoats ready to jump out from the county courthouse to nab him.

  The pea coat, though a short fit in the sleeves, keeps out the cold as Benny marches into the diner. Warmth greets him like a loving mother, even if the locals gawk at this outsider with suspicion. He doesn't care, for his gut overrides his brain. His nose interrogates the smell of sizzling meat and baking pies.

  Taking a seat at a corner table, the huge man is soon snuggled by an overtly friendly waitress. A solid woman sporting her blond hair long with straight cut bangs, she leans in close to Benny while placing her left hand affectionately on his shoulder.

  "What can I get you today, Honey?" she offers with a pleasing flash of white teeth.

  "Do you have asparagus and eggs? Like, a lot of asparagus and eggs?"

  "Yes we do! One healthy plate of asparagus and eggs. Anything else?"

  "Scrapple. Two slices, thick cut and crispy!"

  "Oh, my Honey has an appetite today, doesn't he? And what do you want to drink?"

  "Coffee, please. Black as midnight."

  The waitress repeats Benny's order in full, squeezes his shoulder twice, and gets to work. In less than ten minutes, Benny has his face in a plate of food, slurping like a dry horse at a trough. Many Salemites take note of the noise, but Benny Haskins is starving.

  It is when he finishes the meal that all is right with the world. Benny feels fully satisfied. He can take on anything, go down to the dock at Barber's Basin, help to fit the new machine he and his anxious partner acquired in Millville days before, and dig into this secret war within a war. Bring on the machines. Let slip the Slicks of war!

  "You okay, Honey?" the frisky waitress asks. Her tone changes, altering into one of concern.

  "What? Oh, yeah. I'm fit as a fiddle now. Why?" Benny grins at her like a sheepish child. He has always managed to keep hold of the boyish facial expressions.

  "You're hands are shaking terribly," and she even reaches out to take hold of his right. The lady knows what she's talking about.

  Both of Haskins' hands tremble like dead leaves in an autumn wind.

  Benny tosses money on the table. "Keep the change," he whimpers. He shoots out of the seat and gallops out the door, hands shoved into the pockets of the pea coat.

  Benny stares at anyone who passes him on the street as if they were eyeing him, as if each one was just itching to make a crack about his hidden fragility. Out of the blue, the frigid wind whips up a case of memory loss for the middle-aged pilot. Its bitter sting to his face makes Haskins forget for a time about his hands, about the scars they revive in his mind of hospitals and screaming, of torture.

  But he strides on through the bad weather, never hailing a cab or calling his friend at the Basin for a lift. No. He feels the walk, the weather, will get his nerves aligned somehow. Benny does this whenever the stress becomes real, when it sneaks up on him like a thief with a sap. Yeah, let the wind take it away from me. Please take it away...

  You have to walk down West Broadway, past some scenic Victorian homes and ages old Friends Cemetery on the right by the Salem Free Public Library, to get to the west side of Salem. Farther down, you hang a left at the edge of town on Front Street and let it take you down and to the right on Tilbury Road, where the city dies and reed-filled pastures thrive. After that jaunt on foot, in high wind, you come to Barber's Basin, and a newly constructed hangar full of OFF LIMITS signs. It's not the longest walk in the world, but in the freezing cold, it classifies the walker as a bold adventurer.

  Benjamin Haskins enters the newly built lair of Special Technologies like a human ice block. He shivers now from head to toe, and not from old war wounds. He shuts the door in a loud way, making a banging echo across the hangar. Anyone working stops to see who let in the draft. Jazz music roars from a record player. He tries to ignore the crazy sound.

  "Hey! Who's letting out my heat? Oh! Hey, Benny! Did you finally get some sleep?" Crank yells from the driver seat of her scarab green Stylemaster. Her long, tar black hair hangs half over her pal
e face and pink lips. Only one dark eye actually looks Benny's way that he can see. She remains with the deep rings under her eyes, the kind that make a person look eerie under low light. He hoped they would have gone away when she slept. Wrong.

  She gets up, making her way to the door. Crank, Frederica is her real name, moves like a cat, all grace and quiet. She's a slender, short young woman, half his age, with tiny hands and feet slipped into men's black Army boots, black work pants, and a purple, tight-fitting sweater bearing a black kitty cat over the left breast. The policeman style 'ST' cap sits snug on her head, and for some insane reason, Crank wears black lace gloves, even while working as a mechanic.

  Gal must buy them in bulk.

  This was the lady who kicked down his door, the little miss who drove him across Down Jersey to the Millville Army Airfield to procure a unique piece of warfare. Now, they were partners under Crank's motto: "I keep it flying and you keep it fighting."

  "You ready to work?" she asks. Crank smiles. He likes when Crank smiles. It means she no longer blames him for the cosmetic damage to her car, La Donna, during the Millville tussle.

  "Yeah. Lead the way."

  She leads, Benny follows. Milkman awaits.

  The new concoction stands tall and lean on its birdy legs and arrow feet. Benny loves the thick body, but remains uncertain about the propeller being situated at the plane's rear, even though it rests in a sturdy steel circle like an industrial fan. However, he had flown this baby, and on that morning, they became inseparable. Already, Haskins notes mechanics have removed the machinegun rounds the Slicks had plugged into Milkman, added new paneling and...

  Wait a minute!

  "What...is that!" Benny yells more than asks. He waves his long arms up in the air to clutch his head as if it were sure to take flight.

  "What's what?" Crank asks. When she understands what has brought him to the edge of madness, she beams with pride. "Oh, that! Isn't it great!" She proceeds to turn up the volume on the record player.