Side Life

by Steve Toutonghi

  “I will be back tomorrow. You should be gone. Or I will call the police to have them remove you.”

  “I’ll go.”

  Jason was looking past him, at the interior. He turned, stepped off the porch and walked around the house. Vin followed him toward the apartment. Jason stood in front of the locked, yellow door, staring at it.

  “You know, I have had a private detective watch this place,” he said, while considering the door. “I thought you were going to be living alone, but my detective has spotted a woman who appears to have come out of this apartment. He tells me that her name is Mona Chanson and that she was involved in an incident. What is your connection with her?”

  He waited a moment for a response. Vin shook his head, a tiny little negation, and Jason turned abruptly and walked away. At the curb, he opened the door of a root beer colored BMW sedan and said loudly, not looking at Vin, “It doesn’t matter. To hell with the both of you.”

  VIN DESCRIBED HIS ENCOUNTER WITH Jason while Mona was watching a soap, splitting her attention. When he had finished, she picked up the remote and turned off the TV.

  “So, he’s going to come in here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m leaving.”

  “You once warned me about Joaquin,” he said.

  “I did?”

  He nodded.

  “So, here’s the thing,” she said, “He’s the bad guy.”

  “Always?”

  “I don’t know. Infinity, right? So, I guess not always. There must be some places where he’s good. But it doesn’t matter. In our world, here, right now, he’s the bad guy. And you can bank on it. He may seem reasonable, kind or generous or even romantic, but he’s not at all. He wants everything. He’ll take the house and crèche.”

  “Okay.”

  “But not just that. From what I understand, Joaquin is the worst. James is really bad. I don’t really know this Jason. This is the first place I’ve heard him called that.”

  Vin said, “Okay, you need to actually explain things. I get it. He’s bad. But why? Wake up from your goddamn television shows.”

  Mona blinked, pulled back a bit, put her hand behind her head and pulled thoughtfully on her hair. Then she turned away from him. “Vin, you’ve got a bad temper.”

  “Yes. I know. Don’t tell me things that I already know.”

  “Alright,” she said, lifting her hands and leaning forward on the couch. “I’m going back into the crèche. You too. That’s how we get away from this situation.”

  “What?”

  “He’s getting the house and he’ll control the crèche.” When Vin just stared at her, she added, “Or do you want to be stuck here, in this shitty world for the rest of your life?”

  “But, you’ll still be in that crèche when he takes over the house.”

  She slapped her hands on her thighs and stood. “Nope. Somebody else will.”

  “Yeah. Who is you. They’re all you.”

  “Look, screw them. There’re an infinite number of me and I don’t owe any of them anything. You should see some of the shit they dropped me into.”

  Both Mona and Vin went into caskets.

  CHAPTER 15

  Ban

  Aggad is calling to a crow, “Ta, ta, ta,” fast, an angry call, a warning. The bird is high in a tree, but if Aggad wanted to, he could spear him. The bird watches Aggad and Ban with one eye, bends his head toward them and caws. Ban, whom Vin has landed within, feels a particular closeness with crows. He always has. Birds are other creatures with two legs, like people, and crows have always struck Ban as among the wisest of birds, rather than the tricksters his uncle believed them to be. The truth is, most stories of crows can be heard either way. Ban thinks of it as a test of the listener—can you understand the crow’s wisdom? He and Aggad have never agreed on that point. Aggad thinks crows are foolish.

  “If he keeps following,” Aggad tells Ban, “then he’s a spirit and I’ll have to fight with him.”

  “Don’t do it,” Ban says. “We already have enough trouble on this hill.”

  Aggad is a young man, but a bad listener. The people say Aggad may be possessed one day. He reminds everyone of his father’s father, Duan, who wrestled with a leopard and lost. By his recklessness, Duan angered the spirits of their old home and brought the ants. When the ants arrive in waves like they did, you have to move. Because of Duan, the people have had to look for a new home. This place they came to a few days ago looks good, but everyone is worried that Aggad will make the same kind of stupid mistake. Angering black birds like crows, maybe even bringing them swarming to rush and storm through the treetops and blot out the sky, that’s the kind of stupid thing people would have expected from Duan. If Aggad does it, no one will be too surprised.

  “We have to defend ourselves in this place,” Aggad says. “The birds we ate have probably already planted sorcerers in our people.”

  Sorcerers? Vin’s response is reflexive. He knows that magic isn’t real. By communicating with his host, Ban, he might actually be able to help these people. So he thinks—he suggests—as much to Ban, but when he does he feels an immediate, violent response, a forceful wave of fear and aggression. Ban’s mind centers on Vin and batters at him. Vin is stunned. Ban seems to be able to clearly perceive Vin as a foreign presence in his mind, something no other host Vin has visited has been able to do. Ban is alert to his own awareness in a way that Vin hasn’t felt before. As the assault continues, Vin realizes that not only does Ban understand him as a separate entity, Ban is unwilling to share space in his mind or concede even a single note of agency. Vin hides. He’s not sure how he’s doing it. He’s emptying his mind, trying to feel what Ban feels, think what Ban thinks, and not create independent observations.

  Vin has no idea how a fight with Ban from inside Ban’s own mind would work, but Ban seems ready for it. Vin’s brush with Ban’s awareness suggests that Ban would be ruthless. Vin wants to retreat further, but thinking about retreat might be enough activity to draw Ban’s attention.

  Ban’s body is rigid, still, his eyes closed, and Vin imagines that Aggad is watching him and waiting patiently. Trying not to think is a task whose paradoxical nature becomes immediately apparent to Vin, but it seems to be working. Ban seems to have lost track of him. Vin doesn’t allow himself to judge or suggest. He simply accepts Ban’s understanding of who and what Aggad and Ban are.

  They are the people who walk on two legs. They wear the skins of animal people and plant people. They are homes for the spirits of those who came before them. Vin is aware of other whispering inside Ban’s mind, conversations happening without words like the movement of wind through the limbs and leaves of a forest.

  Ban jerks his head to the left and then the right and then pounds on the back of it with the heel of his palm.

  “Something is changed,” he says to Aggad, and Vin can feel cold worry stiffening Ban’s lanky body.

  Aggad looks away, not willing to challenge Ban by staring when Ban’s mood is so serious. “What is it?” Aggad says quietly.

  “That crow.” Ban nods toward the tree limb where the crow is perched and now watches them with a brotherly concern. “He’s warning us. There is a very dangerous spirit here, who is mocking us, and who has come into me through my eyes.”

  Vin tries not to react, tries not to be anything, tries to melt into the flow of Ban’s perceptions.

  “The forest is singing,” Aggad says. And it’s true. Many spirits—a tricky one like a leopard, an irascible spirit like a boar, or a thoughtful but dangerous spirit like a bear—any of those would quiet the forest before possessing a person, but Aggad and Ban can still hear birds, breezes, and the movement of small animals creeping and scrabbling around them, and there is no smell of fear. That means the spirit is not something they understand. It must be a sorcerer.

  “I don’t know why the forest is still singing,” Ban says. “The spirit inside me is angry. He’s trying to hide right now, but he’s a large spir
it. Larger than us. Maybe a sorcerer, so the forest can’t see him. I can’t see him right now, either. But I smell him.”

  The crow caws loudly, agreeing with Ban, then spreads his wings and rises into the treetops with the fllup, fllup sound of heavy wing beats. He pauses for a moment on a higher limb before flying away.

  “Alright,” says Aggad. “Do you know what it wants? Will it stay in this place if we leave?”

  Aggad is asking something else entirely. A thing that he cannot say. “I don’t know,” Ban says carefully.

  “I hope it does,” says Aggad.

  Ban has known Aggad since he was a child. They both know what Aggad is really saying. Ban nods, and Vin is absolutely certain that if Ban perceives himself to be compromised, to be influenced by sorcery, he’ll warn the other people and they’ll have to kill him and put his body in the fire so Ban’s spirit has a weapon, and so no one else becomes possessed by eating his body. Vin tries to clear his mind. He tries not to exist.

  A FEW BLACK BEETLES—INDIFFERENT to the attention they’re offered as they scrabble over dark root tangles and through moist green leaves that hug the ground—point Aggad and Ban toward the bear scat they’ve been harvesting. Beetles have no guile.

  From there, Aggad and Ban track the lazy bear’s path to a heavy berry patch, her clumsy trail through the stiff twigs that combed her fur and over the supple buds she crushed in mud, her estrus vividly staining the air where she paused or rubbed her bottom on undergrowth.

  Beside the berries, there’s a scarred tree at the end of a long line of thin trees with bright leaves that have a yellow tinge. It will be easy to tell the women which trees to ask for directions.

  It’s getting late. The hunters will be back at their fires soon. As long as the trees don’t tell one of the big bird flocks about them, then there’s not enough time for this whole big berry patch to be eaten. There will be a lot left tomorrow. It’s a good find. The bear must have been in a hurry to leave so much. She must have been chasing her lover, which would make her a bit crazy.

  Ban is tired and uncertain. Aggad wants to keep hunting, to find more meat, deeper in the forest. That seems reckless to Ban. They don’t really need more and the forest may be hiding relatives of the birds they killed. This is a new place and two-legged people like Aggad and Ban, who can house so many spirits, need to be particularly cautious. They have meat at their fire and soon they’ll have these berries. There’s too much at stake to push their luck.

  It’s only right that Ban make the decision. After a short conversation, Aggad agrees to go back. Ban is elder and Aggad’s line is weak after Duan’s mistake. Aggad knows people are suspicious of him, but Aggad is proud. He doesn’t mask his resentment that Ban has assumed the right to choose. As they start toward their fire, Ban reflects on how often mistakes flow into other mistakes, how difficult it is to stop poisoned water once it starts moving. He hopes Aggad will begin to listen. Aggad has a lot to learn from the voices around him.

  AGGAD AND BAN SMELL THEIR fire long before they reach the meadow, the odor of fat from the cooking birds lying heavily on the slowly shifting air. That restless bear is well fed, so she probably won’t be drawn by the scent. Then they see the distant glow of firelight through the trees and soon hear fire crackling. The ground is still moist from yesterday’s heavy rain, but there were no clouds today. They’ll probably see all the sky fires tonight. It might be a good night, with everybody celebrating, singing and dancing.

  In addition to the meat, they found many ferns and mushrooms on the bodies of fallen tree people. The astonishing truth is that this new place may be even better than the home the ants took. They’ll have to consider how they might convince all their dead ancestors to join them here. If this place continues to give them so much food, it’s possible that Duan’s folly may ultimately be revealed as guidance, and then Aggad’s line might return to leadership.

  Their fire circle is the first one, and closest to the trees. When they come to the edge of the forest, Aggad squats and does a rocking dance, leading Ban back into the circle that the two of them share with Naf. The feathers in Aggad’s hair shine with gold as he becomes a squirrel and shakes his head with urgent news in the fading evening light. It’s a bit showy for Ban’s taste. Aggad wants to take credit for finding the berries.

  Naf lies beside the fire, his three women—Tatsi, Bejis, and Amnir—cleaning bird hides nearby. Naf’s face is pale and sweaty. He was the only one hurt in yesterday’s fighting and he’s been getting worse. The people surrounded the birds and took them by surprise just before sunrise, killed many of them quickly, including their young. But a few of the strong ones fought back. Every kind of person, even a bird, is frightened by the voyage to the spirit world. One of the birds in particular had been very courageous. Now his courage and strength will feed the people, fortify them against whatever threatening magic might live in this new home.

  “Tatsi,” Aggad calls proudly to the oldest and strongest of Naf’s women, “we found berries for you to pick tomorrow.”

  “Alright,” she says. She grins at him. She’s bending around Anja, a boy who might be strong enough to stay with the people. Tatsi’s arms encircle him as she uses a thin stone to cut strips of hide. “That’s better than nothing.” Tatsi is a natural leader and has always had a sharp tongue. Aggad’s confidence drains away and he looks sulky.

  The smell of the roasting meat is irresistible. Ban is hungry. It’s Naf’s women who are doing the cooking though. “Where are my women?” he asks Tatsi, and she grunts and points with her chin in the direction of the creek.

  “What about my woman?” asks Aggad.

  “Same,” Tatsi says.

  “When did they leave?” Ban asks.

  “Not long,” Tatsi says.

  If it hasn’t been long since they left, they probably won’t be back until all the fires in the skies are lit. A few are visible already, but most of the sky people are still out hunting.

  “Naf is looking tired,” Ban says, making the story easier, less threatening. It’s a courtesy—you create the possibility that a person may just be tired, and not badly wounded. But Ban can see that his old friend is fighting to stay in his flesh.

  Ban’s limbs grow heavy as he squats beside the fire. He and Naf have always agreed on things. Naf is a sensitive person, and is strong in Ban’s mind. Naf’s eyes are always red from thinking too hard. Bejis and Amnir look up from their work and Tatsi shakes her head sadly.

  “He isn’t doing well,” Tatsi says now. Ban winces, wishing she could be just a little more subtle. Then she says, “You can have some of that meat.”

  That’s a very bad sign for Naf—his women bartering for new men. It almost implies that Naf was just waiting for Aggad and Ban to return so that he could say goodbye before leaving for the spirit world. Ban likes Tatsi, and won’t mind if she wants to be his woman, but even though she’s strong she can be so tactless.

  Ban hopes that Naf won’t leave to the other worlds right away, that he’ll stay for at least a few seasons in this new place. It’s a little dangerous to hope for a thing like that—if you hold them back, the dying can turn bitter and cause sorrow—but Naf is kindhearted and has been a good friend. And Naf has a good nose for sorcery. After today, Ban is sure Naf’s advice would be helpful. The sorcerer who came in through Ban’s eyes might have even followed them to the fire. If it did, then if Naf does die, maybe he can help Ban kill the sorcerer.

  Ban reaches out for a stick that’s holding a hunk of meat above the fire. He lifts the stick and looks the meat over. It’s charred on the underside and moist above. Tatsi has a talent for cooking meat. Her line works well with plant people and she’s expert at coaxing leaves into changing the taste of cooked things. The truth is, she’s good at making most things. Ban pushes a thumb into a greasy split in the meat and separates a tender chunk and drops it into his mouth, closes his eyes as his mouth fills with water. He chews slowly, savoring the smoky richness of the charcoal sear. But
the worry for Naf is heavy on him.

  “What about me?” Aggad asks. He’s making a fair point. Naf isn’t dead, so Tatsi is still with him. If Naf’s women are sharing meat, they need to share it with everyone at the fire. Ban glances at Tatsi and can see she agrees. Bejis, Naf’s middle wife, will probably go with Aggad. Everyone likes Bejis, so it will be important to keep Aggad happy.

  Seeing their agreement, Aggad says, “Yeah,” with a grunt. He pulls out the largest skewer that’s hanging over the fire, which is very rude. That should be Naf’s, or Tatsi’s. Aggad notices Ban glaring at him. He looks away and pulls a hunk of flesh from the skewer.

  “A sorcerer went into Ban,” Aggad says.

  “Oh?” Tatsi’s voice and manner remain neutral as Aggad openly challenges Ban. The hair on Ban’s forearm prickles. The other two women are paying close attention, but no one pauses in their work.

  “Yeah,” says Aggad. He returns Ban’s unblinking gaze. “Is it gone?”

  The breeze turns and the smoke rising from the fire flows directly into Ban’s face, making him lean back, away from the heat and ash. He grunts. He doesn’t have many good options. The accusation from a man who shares his fire could limit his influence for years, maybe forever. But what Aggad said is true, and—what’s worse—Ban isn’t sure the sorcerer is gone. He still feels a thing that he can’t identify. No matter how badly it harms him, Ban must be calm, for the good of the people.

  He eats the last morsel from his small skewer. He stands and stretches, flexing his shoulders under the old leopard hide and scratching his ridged belly. He’s bigger than Aggad, and stronger. A better hunter. He looks toward the sky where more fires are lit for the night as the sky people gather in tribes.

  Ban doesn’t want to eat any more of Naf’s food. He decides to cook his own meat. His women will appreciate it when they return with water. He steps to the line of trees, where his cache hangs from the branches. He unties the grass twine that holds the heavy bundle in place, sets it on the ground, then pulls open the thin hides. On top is the roasted forearm and hand of one of the birds, the bones of two of its five fingers showing. A child’s forearm and hand are underneath. Ban moves those away. He wants a cut from the good meat under the arm.