The Mark of Chaos

by Susan D. Kalior

  Oh Saint Margaret, I prayed, help me be good. Help me be strong. Save me from—

  As if reading my mind, johnny's words broke into my prayer with a seductive tone that swallowed me whole. “I can save you, Jenséa. You are safe with me.”

  If only I could be safe with him. My whole life I’d longed for protection, more than love. More than love. I wanted him to talk on, and weave a wonderful knight in shining armor tale. If only he spoke truth. But he didn't. Men lie. On second thought, he'd best not speak.

  I must have been stepping backward crooked because my back hit the wall. I felt like one of those sad, hapless victims in Lethal Weapon, the ones Mel and Danny find dead. I wasn’t dead yet. Soon maybe.

  He stopped in front of me.

  My eyes rolled up to assess his.

  He said, “You had trouble getting here.”

  I touched my crucifix. “More than you know.”

  “I know.”

  I glanced at Red Hair, out cold on the dirty floor. “Will he be all right?” My wrists crossed over my heart. A child-like reaction, I know, but I felt like a child.

  “The human body is resilient.”

  “But that punch was—hard.”

  A cold glaze crossed his eyes. “Not hard enough.”

  I threw my hands over my face. “I don’t like that look!”

  “You wouldn’t—gentle Pisces.”

  Still hiding behind my hands, I said, “That look hurts me.”

  “The look is gone, ma chérie.”

  My father was French. I loved a man speaking French to me. Not that one ever did, except maybe my father, but I fantasized one would—maybe, some day. I guess today was the day. I lowered my hands and braved to peek at him once more.

  He stared into me, not at me, with eyes hot and manly. Not the whirling thing this time, just pure male energy.

  My body was further activated with sensations that leapt off the scale. I was immoral for having untamed lust. I’d never felt lust before. I was kind of closed that way. I guess ‘was’ is the operative word. It was imperative that I shove these sensations back into the vault from which they'd escaped.

  “Free yourself,” he said.

  “What?” I replied. I pressed my back harder against the wall, as if I could hide in it if only I pressed hard enough.

  “Let go, Jenséa.”

  “Of what?”

  “Your restraint.”

  I shook my head. My restraint was a good thing. However, I felt malleable in his presence. If he touched me, I’d be mush. I was desperate for a diversion. I looked down at a dirt smudge on the thigh of my white jeans. “Randa assured me that . . . that no harm would come to me, that . . . that you were kind of psychic, and that somehow . . . you’d watch over me.” I knew my ordeals weren’t his fault, but it was the only idea I could muster. “A lot of things happened out there.” I braved another look at his face and said, without meaning it, “Where have you been?”

  His manly gaze vanished. The cynic returned. “You didn’t believe Randa when she said I would protect you. You believed—” he slipped his fingers behind my crucifix, lifting it from my neck, “in this.”

  I squinted, staring at him, speechless with suspicion. Okay, so he wasn't a Christian. An atheist perhaps? My words came demurely, “Is that a problem?”

  His head tilted back, but his eyes were fixed on me. “It took you a long time to call—for me.” He dropped the crucifix in the hollow of my neck and gave a wry smile. “I helped you anyway—a little.”

  “A little late,” I said with meek hostility, again not really meaning it.

  “Not late,” he rebutted, “even though you relied on some religious notion that is purely fiction.”

  My eyes widened. When it came to religion, I was courageous. Religion is all that got me through my parents’ deaths, the death of the grandma who raised me, and my ordeals with men. My near and dear religion was everything to me . . . everything! Religious conviction—I was good at that. I’d found the diversion I needed, but not the one I wanted.

  “Those I pray to are not fictitious!”

  “They didn’t protect you.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Not because of them.”

  I jutted my chin bravely. “Not because of you.”

  “I was watching over you,” he said.

  “If that’s so, why didn’t you help me on Avenue C?”

  “You didn’t call for me.”

  I shook my head. “You wouldn’t have heard my call.”

  “I would have heard.”

  “You couldn’t have.”

  “Then how is it I heard you call for your religious idols?”

  I hugged my stomach. “You’re guessing, because of the crucifix.”

  “Your pot-bellied adversary would have robbed you if not for my interference.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “How do you know about him?”

  “I was there.”

  “You were following me?”

  “I was with you.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “I was there.”

  I studied him skeptically for a moment. “In what way?”

  His eyes captured mine. He raised one brow, conveying wordlessly that he’d used occult means.

  “Well, even if you astral projected or some such thing, you still couldn’t have helped me.”

  “I did help you.”

  I lowered my head, feeling ill. To me, realms beyond the body were controlled by either God or the Devil, and they each had their servants. If he was against God, what did that make him? For one thing, in my book, it made him worse than a rapist or murderer. No, I couldn’t bear to think it. He was just a man toying with my head, maybe reading my thoughts. He didn’t save me out there on the streets. It was luck—or not luck, what was I saying? God protected me.

  I sighed indignantly, set on trapping him in his lie. “Are you claiming that you’re some kind of magician?”

  “The idea frightens you?”

  “No. Because I don’t believe you. No one has such powers save God . . . or the Devil.” I asked half-heartedly, “Are you the Devil?”

  “Some say so.”

  I was a little stunned by his candid answer. Would the Devil admit he was the Devil? I had an uncanny feeling, it was he—setting the trap. Well, I wouldn’t let him. “God saved me and He turned the street lights green.”

  “I saved you, and I turned the lights. Your little man in the sky does not exist, and you are ignorant for a creature of your station.”

  My mind got immensely tangled, leaving me in a speechless knot. The trap thickens, or is that the plot? Creature of my station? What did that mean? Ignorant? I was not ignorant. Little man in the sky? Try, big man in the sky, and He does exist. I’d untangled the knot. I was about to rebut with opening mouth, but snapped it shut when a monstrous black fly started buzzing about my face. I almost screeched when it looked me in the eye. Then suddenly, it plummeted to the floor—dead. Huh? I gulped.

  “Poor thing,” I said, staring at the dead fly. Yes, flies scared me, but I didn’t wish them dead. How could that happen? If I looked at johnny’s face, what expression would I see?

  I looked. I saw . . . amusement. Had he killed that fly by occult means? Had he?

  He said, “You pity the death of a fly, even though flies have terrified you since childhood. You pity the death of what you fear. Interesting.”

  How did he know I feared flies? How did he know! Was it the look on my face? I decided to let him off the hook, because hooking him felt too dangerous. “Listen,” I said, “I didn’t expect you to protect me, or even help me. You couldn’t have known about the taxi. Randa made claims about you that she had no right to make.”

  His eyes narrowed, then flared—or blazed I should say.

  I jumped, repelled by his volcanic power. Away, I must get away from him. I slid sideways from the wall, no longer my security, but a barricade from my escape. I tried
to head toward the stairway, but I wound up walking backwards, zigzagging all over the place, because he remained six inches from my face wherever I stepped, delivering a monotone speech that somehow carried more punch than an emotional one. “You were ejected from a taxi four blocks away. You were lost and frightened. You didn’t know where to turn, where to go, or what to do. You were approached by several, followed by one, nearly run over, nearly robbed, nearly raped. In all three instances you were spared.”

  My back hit the wall—again.

  His voice turned dryer, almost dead, “I can make people do my bidding, even when it’s to aid a religious zealot like you.”

  I gasped. “You aren’t a very nice person.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I stared at him, wordless. What was he saying—that he’d made Red Hair save me from Pot Belly, and he made My Hero save me from Red Hair?

  I heard his voice whisper in my head, Yes.

  Was he playing some cruel joke on me, filling my mind with lies so that I’d cower before him?

  His voice whispered in my head, No.

  Or, did he think his proclamation of power would impress me?

  Again, his voice whispered in my head, No.

  I shook my head and stared at my feet. Was he reading my mind and answering me telepathically? Maybe he was evil. Maybe he was the Devil. Or maybe my potent imagination was getting the better of me. I took a deep breath. This was real life, not a scene from The Omen. He wasn’t satanic. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t, because I couldn’t accept that he was. I couldn’t fight the Devil and win. And I didn’t deserve to win, for I had gravely sinned by painting horror, and collecting weapons, and feeling this lust—this horrible, wonderful lust. johnny apparently had seen my struggles, perhaps with psychic vision. But it was surely God who saved me.

  I could corner him on this one. I had to, or else it was I who was trapped. I shifted my focus from my feet to his face. “You may have seen what happened, but if you were truly there, why did you let me go through so much?”

  “I told you before. You didn’t call for me,” he said. “You must learn to do so.”

  I shook my head briskly, shocked by his words. “I would never replace the name of the Almighty with yours. God saved me,” I said, wondering if I believed it myself.

  His eyes flickered ire before lowering his lids half-mast. “So misguided—” he murmured, “such purity daunted—” he glanced at the crucifix, “—by such a lie.”

  I felt teary. He was pounding my dear religion to pieces.

  “Let it go,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Your religion.”

  I gasped. “I’d rather die than betray God.”

  “You will,” he said.

  I will? What was that supposed to mean? That I would die, or that I would betray God? I didn’t want to know. Why should I believe him anyway? Enough was enough. I must return to Randa. I started to step around him to pass. His hand landed heavy on my shoulder, stopping my escape. Tingling warmth spread down my arm, across my chest.

  His fiery orange eyes seemed to whirl again, drawing me into him somehow, dissipating my resistance. What was doubt? What was fear? Surface barriers of facade were long behind me, along with the nervous chitchat and casual comments necessary in getting to know another person. This calm excitement was so much better. It was good to leave the land of shy.

  I knew only him. He was molten lava, warm and thick, filling the wounded chasm of my lonely heart, burning away my dreadful memories, surrounding me in red-orange wondrous beauty. Or, was it I journeying further into his crimson and tangerine world, a world that welcomed my deep-seated fantasies of passionate sex and fairy tale love. Deeper I went, deeper, feeling continually more sated as I journeyed into the flaming corridors of red-orange turning orange, and orange turning yellow, heading into brilliant white heat. And there I saw the face of something . . . holy.

  Movement behind johnny distracted me. I backed halfway out of johnny’s world. Red Hair was rising like a blood red sun, creeping toward johnny, beaming his sharp knife at johnny’s back.

  “He’s getting up,” I said, half-dazed. “Oh . . . oh, he is going to stab you!”

  johnny remained still and held eye contact with me. “Hmm. You care?”

  I nodded, getting nervous that johnny didn’t. “Don’t you care?” I tugged his arm with both hands to pull him away. “He’s right behind you!”

  An invisible force drew me backward gently, my hands falling from johnny’s arm.

  Red Hair drew his knife back for the strike, blade gleaming under the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

  johnny, still looking at me, cocked his head a little, smiled a little, sighed a little—and then swung around punching Red Hair in the face, more forcefully than the first time.

  I jolted with a gasp, almost as if I’d lunged out of johnny's psyche to avoid feeling his violent act.

  Red Hair’s body flew backward, landing flat on the floor, out cold—again. The force of the punch had jettisoned the knife from his hand sending it far down the hall. Though I knew nothing of fighting, the power in that punch seemed impossible. Yet, there it was. Surely such a blow had killed him. He wasn’t moving.

  johnny walked toward the knife, away from me.

  I backed away from the scene. My legs were shaking, so I went to the wall for support. Leaning my back against the secure structure, I slid down to a sitting position, hands over closed eyes, sandwiching my forearms between my chest and upward bent knees.

  Brutality offended me so, even though I’d been painting it for the last six months. I realized then just how much johnny’s whirling gaze had calmed me. When he turned away, all my terror had resumed—along with my doubts of him, and fear of my attraction toward him. Still, I couldn’t feel Red Hair’s pain, and this baffled me greatly.

  I hadn’t heard johnny approach, yet his voice was near my face. “It is a violent world, and I am a violent man.” His fingers circled my wrists, pulling my hands away from my closed eyes. Then, he brushed a hand over my face. “You can see me.”

  My eyes opened against my will.

  He was squatted before me.

  I said, “I’m afraid to see you.”

  “I know this.” He drew me up gently by my wrists until I was standing. He held me there with captured hands like a groom pledging loyalty to his bride. “I am your ally. I am your . . .” he turned his head toward the hall as if searching for a word. Then he looked back at me, “guardian.” He freed my wrists, sliding his hands down my forearms.

  A pleasant pang shot down the trunk of my body. A quivering sigh slipped from my mouth. And I was embarrassed that it did. I blushed. And that embarrassed me more. I prayed, Oh Saint Margaret, give me strength. Help me reject him. Please help me.

  Gaining my resolve, I said not too convincingly, “Guardian? I have spiritual guardians.” I looked at my jean smudge, then lied, “I don’t need a man to guard me.” I peeked up at him modestly. “I really don’t.”

  Who was I fooling?

  His eyes glittered.

  Not him.

  “You need me,” he said.

  I shook my head, then looked down, ashamed. I felt dirty for wanting him, as dirty as the dirt on my pants. I craved to let him inside me, in every way. I yearned to let him protect me eternally, but he wouldn’t. He had an ulterior motive. Men always did. And even if by some miracle he didn’t, I couldn’t put him in my pocket and pull him out when I needed protection. I looked back up at him. “What is this about, johnny? I came to you for an astrological reading. Instead you play games with me.”

  I told myself that he was full of lies.

  He commented as if he’d heard my thought. “I speak the truth—to you.”

  I was concluding that he could read minds. That would account for everything. I glanced at him shyly, then swept my cheek to my shoulder. “I don’t need you. God will protect me.”

  “Oh,” he said cynically, “the way H
e has protected you all the days of your life, the way He did your parents?”

  I felt like the wind had been slammed out of me. How did he know these things about me? My astrology chart? Psychic ability? Randa? Had Randa been talking? I no longer cared. He made me suffer inside, and his explanations alarmed me. I couldn’t accept anything he implicated. With my cheek secure on my shoulder, I rolled my eyes up toward him. “God takes care of me.”

  I felt a wave of rage roll through him. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there. He walked away. I pretended I wasn’t watching, keeping my cheek to my shoulder, but I eyed him cautiously. johnny’s belt held Red Hair’s knife, that horrid, horrid knife. He arrived by Red Hair sprawled on his back, spidery limbs twisted.

  johnny slanted his head down at Red Hair, but looked at me. “You fear me, more than him.”

  I looked the other way, dodging his trap. Avoid eye contact. That’s the ticket. johnny was right though. I did fear him more than Red Hair. Red Hair could take my body. But johnny, perhaps, could take my soul.

  He was silent. The droning flies sounded louder. I glanced up and dropped my jaw at the masses of bugs and flies that twice thickened over the fluorescent lighting. I closed my mouth, afraid one might sail in. johnny hadn’t said a word. What was he doing? I peeked.

  His downcast head was turned toward me. “But I’d not harm you.” He jerked his head slightly toward Red Hair. “He would.”

  Geez, he knew how to use silence. And I was falling for it. I could be silent too. I could. I stared at the wall by a graffiti decorated apartment door. Over the graffiti was a message in red spray paint, ‘You’re dead José.’

  johnny said, “He might be dead.”

  He used words as skillfully as silence.

  I snapped my head toward him, knowing he referred to Red Hair. “Is he?”

  “Do you wish him to be?”

  I just stood there with my mouth open, even if a fly did get tempted. I didn’t say anything. I was supposed to say I hope he’s alive, right? But I really hoped he wasn’t, because then he couldn’t hurt me. Nevertheless, the truth made me look bad and feel bad, and I think johnny wanted me to be bad, so I'd not give him the satisfaction.