He stopped in his tracks, letting Harry go on about being a taxi driver on a rainy night, without Jerry’s disharmony. Sitting on the couch, watching him and grinning much too widely, was Isis.
Jerry dropped the smaller towel in shock and grabbed the larger one as if it might fall off. While holding the shifting towel with one hand, he tried to sign and talk, too.
“Damn, girl! What are you doing here?” He moved toward the bedroom, trying to keep stacks of boxes between himself and Isis.
“Mom sent me to get you. Dad made a fresh batch of Irish Cream and thought we could try it before dinner.”
“I’ll be ready in a couple minutes, so go tell them I’ll be right there.”
“Oh no. I’m not leaving. If this is as close as I get to seeing you naked, I’m not missing a second of it.”
“Isis! You’re only fifteen! And you have a boyfriend!” He stopped behind a stack of boxes as high as his chest and signed with both hands over the top box. “I could get arrested for just standing here talking to you like this.”
Isis stayed on the couch but leaned left then right, trying to see around the boxes blocking her view. “Don’t be silly. I’ll never tell.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No, the point is that Chad is sweet, but he’s too immature. He doesn’t understand me like you do.”
“You’ve been out on a total of three dates with him. Give him a chance, Isis. Love takes time. It doesn’t happen in a couple weeks.” The towel slipped but he caught it before it revealed anything. “Damn! Go or stay, but I’m going into my bedroom, alone, so I can get dressed for dinner, with your whole family. If your dad walked in right now he’d kill me. No questions asked, just a bullet between the eyes. He’s a cop—he could get away with it.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Right. Remember that. Me old man, you jailbait. No fun. No fun at all.” He backed into the bedroom, both hands holding the towel securely in place and then closed the door with a resounding thump.
JERRY EVENTUALLY RE-EMERGED from the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a faded red Fanshawe College sweatshirt fit for a casual dinner with friends.
“There. Shall we—” Isis sat on the couch, crying softly and clutching his bulky, olive-green, cable-knit sweater. “Hey, I’m sorry, Kiddo.” He moved a couple boxes off the couch and sat down beside her, keeping a polite distance between them.
“It’s not your fault I’m going to miss you, Jerry.”
“But, Isis . . .” He had no idea what to say and she interrupted him before he could come up with anything.
“Can I ask a big favour?”
“Of course.”
“This sweater. Can . . . can I have it? I’ll buy you a new one, but I want this one.”
“Um . . .” The sweater had been a Christmas gift from his mother, four or five years before.
“It’s my favourite. I just want something to remember you by.”
“You betcha. It’s yours, for a trade.” He’d started to think that leaving his friends in St. Marys wasn’t going to be as painless as he’d first thought.
“What trade?”
“Something of yours, something I will remember you by. And nothing kinky.” The last thing he needed was to get caught driving across the continent with the cute frilly nightie of a fifteen-year-old girl in his suitcase. His hopes of taking the shortcut through the States would be dashed.
“Oh, yes! Can I pick it? I want it to be something special!”
“Sure. Your choice, but with your mom’s full approval. Now, we have to go—your folks will wonder what’s keeping us.”
“Don’t worry.” She wiped way the last of her tears and grinned. “I told them I was going to give you a blow-job before we join them for the Irish Cream.”
He leaped off the couch and nearly fell over a box on the floor. “WHAT?!!”
“Psych! Mom said you’ll be late like always and I was to stay and hurry you up.” With the sweater held close she got up from the couch and started down the hall to leave the apartment, laughing as she went.
Jerry relaxed and followed her. “Then let’s go get some Irish Cream.” Her back was turned so she didn’t hear him, but at the door she stopped and faced him, then threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, lightly, and broke the embrace first. Isis stepped back, pulling the cherished sweater to her chest.
“Thank you, Jerry.”
DINNER WITH ISIS’ family went well, and her parents were grateful when they saw the sweater and understood it had been a gift of sorts to their daughter. They knew all about Isis’ crush on their upstairs neighbour, but they also knew that Jerry had never treated Isis with anything but respect and kindness. He’d been their neighbour since Isis was twelve and they trusted him completely.
When he got back to his apartment, the hot meal and Irish cream teamed up to give him a sense that everything was right in the world, and he was making the best decision he could. He gently packed up the shoebox again, slipped it into a nearly full liquor box, and padded around it with one of the sweaters Isis left him with. He was so tired that he didn’t even bother to turn off the lamp on Sushi’s bowl, letting the glow show him the way to bed.
LIKE THE FIRST rays of morning sun cresting a hill and breaching her window, she felt warmth and light and an invitation to simply move up and out of the dark. She shed that absolute absence of light like a blanket, and emerged into a dream world. The dream around her was dim and without form at first, but eventually it began to take the shape of a small flat with nice high ceilings. It was not her bedroom, of that she was quite certain. Nor was it any room she knew in either the Palace or that last bleak house she remembered before . . . before . . . before she remembered nothing. She was not dreaming of a familiar place, but there was no darkness. There were also no soldiers, no guns, and no screams. She knew it was obviously a dream, but it was a much more pleasant dream than the ones she had been haunted by for so very long. This was a dream she could linger in.
Never before had she experienced a dream of such rich, clear detail. It appeared to be a flat, but full of boxes. Why would she dream of such a strange place? And where was Alexei? Or Olga or Tatiana? Where was Mashka?! She spun around, thinking they could be behind her, out of sight, but she was alone. She worried but then she felt an irresistible draw, a tug of sorts, pulling her away from the dream. The dream faded back into the darkness she had become so accustomed to.
THE NEXT MORNING, Isis’ parents were as sad as their daughter when Jerry finally placed his camera bag in the packed-full Jeep and backed out of his parking spot for the last time. They waved, he waved, Isis cried, and even Jerry shed a tear or two.
HE CROSSED THE Canada-USA border at Sarnia rather than Windsor to the south, in order to bypass Detroit, a city he liked to visit but hated to drive through in any weather, let alone winter ice and snow. For the most part, road crews kept the interstates as clear of snow as could be done and every few miles he came upon sand-and-salt crews spreading their traction-assisting mix.
Stopping only for gas and one hot meal, Jerry made it through Michigan, the top of Indiana, through the always-congested Chicago, and up the I-90 to Rockford, where he let his GPS lead him to the closest Super 8. He got a room for himself and Sushi, and after a quick chat with the desk clerk for directions just before he closed up for the night, Jerry was off to the local Little Caesars for his favourite comfort food—a medium veggie pizza and a bottle of Coke.
Back at the Super 8 he dropped some food flakes in Sushi’s bowl and watched the local news while munching pizza, propped up on a stack of pillows on one of the two double beds. He had three texts from Isis so he quickly rattled off an “I’m okay, Sushi is a lousy co-pilot, miss you, too” reply. He couldn’t spend the entire trip hearing the beep of waiting texts from a sweet but infatuated teen, so he muted the ringer and placed the phone on top of his wallet on the bedside table.
He couldn’t believe that he’d finally left Ontario a
nd the road was under his feet. Like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in the late 1940s, Jerry felt the electrifying thrill of being on the road, leaving behind the known and facing into the unknown. Thankful he wasn’t hitchhiking like his two heroes had, Jerry tossed the empty pizza box onto the other bed and fell asleep sometime after midnight.
SHE FELT STRONGER than she had in ages and sensed that she was finally moving in a direction she was destined to go. An energy reached for her that was in defiance of the darkness and she listened to it, heeded its call. Pushing away the solitude, though, she found only more darkness . . . then within that darkness there appeared light, so she pushed further out into it and found herself in a brightly lit yard full of the oddest looking automobiles, with smooth lines and curved glass, nothing like the boxy conveyances her family rode in.
There appeared to be snow on the ground and on some of the vehicles, but she couldn’t feel the cold. It was all the oddest of dreams, but unlike most of her dreams since she tumbled into the darkness, this was peaceful. Odd, but peaceful. She gained some strength in knowing that there was now light and life, even in her dreams. When the darkness tugged at her once again, she returned to it, no longer as afraid as she had been.
DAY TWO FOUND Jerry following I-90 up through Wisconsin, into Minnesota and on to South Dakota. Except for stops to sample real Wisconsin cheese, pick up a souvenir ceramic mouse-and-cheese salt-and-pepper set, dip his toe into the mighty Mississippi River near Lacrosse, and a half-hour detour south on I-35 over the Minnesota-Iowa state line—just so he could say he’d been to Captain James T. Kirk’s home state—he made good time to Chamberlain, South Dakota. The Best Western he found was a block away from the Missouri River. He didn’t know a lot of American history, but knew enough to be awed for the second time that day. He must have stood on the Chamberlain Bridge for half-an-hour watching what Google said was once North America’s longest river, as it flowed beneath his feet. He soaked up the rhythm and found a peace he hadn’t felt in a really long time. Eventually he wandered back to the motel for much-needed sleep.
In addition to his camera gear and computer bag, he grabbed one box from the back of the Jeep, to keep safe in the motel room with him and Sushi. The further he travelled from home, away from his family, the more Jerry thought about the odd little treasures left to him by his great-grandfather, and the more he felt the need to protect them. They were pieces of his own history, far more than silly knick-knacks, and definitely worthy of care.
He fed Sushi, drank a glass of cold South Dakota tap water, and climbed between the crisp, starched motel sheets. Sleep caught up with him almost as soon as he clicked off the mock-brass bedside lamp.
SOMETHING WAS CHANGED. She sensed warmth that had been missing. She stretched and moved out of the darkness, and found herself in a simple room. She couldn’t see clearly, but it seemed to have basic, blocky furniture devoid of any adornments, including a desk on which a small fish bowl sat. She watched the beautiful red and purple beauty swim back and forth as if it could see her. Eventually it settled down and relaxed just above the gravel on the bottom of the simple bowl. She found it peaceful to just watch the fins and gills move. Did it sleep? She had no idea. Drifting around the hazy room, she wandered through the bed and inadvertently passed through its occupant. She got a sense of a young man and backed away quickly, embarrassed to have invaded his privacy even in the dream. Her dark cocoon soon beckoned to her so she willingly returned to its familiarity.
EXCITEMENT WOKE HIM earlier the next morning than he’d planned, and an odd dream he’d had about a pretty girl watching over him in silence stuck with him as he fixed himself a cup of decaf, had a quick shower, packed everything up, and loaded it all into the Jeep. Eventually thoughts of seeing Rushmore pushed the dream girl into the background.
Despite a light dusting of snow, man and fish were off before sunrise in an attempt to make it across the state to the Black Hills to see Mount Rushmore by lunch. He knew Sushi didn’t give a damn about where they had lunch, but Jerry felt that if they could get there by mid-day, he could take some time to see one of the great man-made wonders of the modern world. For him, Rushmore was to be the highlight of the whole road trip. As he’d told Isis when they’d gone over his itinerary the night before he left, there were two reasons he was driving through the U.S.—to avoid much of the Canadian prairie winter weather, and to see Mount Rushmore. They’d spent an hour on her laptop looking up the mountain-carved monument on Wikipedia, and before they were done, Isis was so excited that she wanted to go with him just so she could see the faces of the four presidents carved into the side of a mountain.
“That is too cool, Jerry! Take lots of pictures and email them to me. Promise?”
“I promise, Kiddo.”
WITHIN THE INKY blackness enveloping and winding through her, she could sense motion again, as if the darkness was on the move. She lacked the energy to stretch beyond her prison again, and she wanted to cry out, for anyone, friend of foe, but she still couldn’t find her voice. Exhausted, she was isolated, suspended . . . lost.
Chapter Four
@TheTaoOfJerr: “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”
~Plato
JERRY DIDN’T ARRIVE in Custer, South Dakota until after lunch, but that was only because he’d spent an hour wandering around Wall Drugs—“America’s Biggest Roadside Attraction”. He bought a carved, lifelike, two-inch tall rattlesnake for Isis, and got the requisite free bumper sticker from the bin at the exit from one of the shops, but in his excitement to reach Rushmore, he was disappointed in the massive Wild West tourist trap in the simply-named town of Wall. Under different circumstances, he thought he probably could have appreciated the shops, galleries, and museums more, but the Jeep’s tires spit gravel and snow as he fled the parking lot and made his way back to I-90 and west to the turnoff south to the town of Custer and Mount Rushmore.
HE COULD HAVE spent years researching the mountain-tall memorial and still not been prepared for the thrill of seeing it in person, towering above him, beyond the Avenue of the Flags, the Grand View Terrace, and the amphitheatre. Someone back east had once told him that they were disappointed with how small the memorial was, but standing there, looking up at its immensity, Jerry had to wonder what the hell they were expecting if they considered this small. He was blown away.
Knowing that he couldn’t leave Sushi in the Jeep for too long without heat, he snapped pictures from every angle imaginable, walked the short Presidential Trail, ducked into the Lincoln Borglum Museum, and scooted through the gift shop in record time. He hated to leave the magnificence of Gutzon Borglum’s masterpiece of engineering, but the mountain temperatures were dropping quickly, the forecast was for wet snow out of nearby Wyoming, and Sushi, patient and sturdy though he was, deserved to spend the night in a warm hotel room.
He promised himself that someday soon he’d return to fully appreciate the human and natural history of the Black Hills, then Jerry reluctantly drove back north to I-90 and west into Wyoming. A roast beef sandwich and an orange Gatorade grabbed in Rapid City kept his stomach from growling too much, but just south of Sheridan, Wyoming, at almost 4000 feet above sea level, a headache hit like a bullet to the brain.
With one hand pressed against his temple to feebly try and suppress the chainsaw in his head, and one eye barely open, Jerry swerved off the highway and into a closed truck weigh scale. As soon as the Jeep skidded to a stop, he slammed it into PARK, staggered out into the snow, and collapsed, vomiting up the orange mess that had once been the sandwich and the sports drink. Gentle flakes of loving snow drifted calmly down to blanket him in a thin layer of cooling, crisp white, but it took plunging his head face-first into a snow drift to push the pain back.
The sword of agony was eventually supplanted by the spear of cold, so Jerry hauled himself to his feet and stumbled to the still-running Jeep. A quick look at his watch said that he’d only been there fo
r ten minutes, but he felt like it had been years. He rinsed his mouth out with warm water from the bottle in the console, popped in some gum, and pulled back out onto the quiet interstate. Twenty minutes later he and Sushi were in a beige room in a beige motel somewhere just off the interstate. Sushi gobbled up the food flakes Jerry dropped in his bowl while Jerry nibbled a Subway tuna wrap and sipped Coke in a feeble attempt to resurrect his blood sugar. He fell asleep with Garth Brooks’ “The Beaches of Cheyenne” whispering out of the tinny clock radio, courtesy of Sheridan’s own KYTI 93.7, and slept until nine the next morning.
SHE SENSED A great deal of pain nearby and so stayed in her darkness. Although she was curious about the young man she had bumped into in that stark dream room, the great pain frightened her and hinted that something may have happened to herself recently that involved more pain than she could ever imagine. She curled around herself and pushed all thoughts of agony away.
THE HEADACHE STAYED close to the surface this time, so the next day and a half were a bit of a blur for Jerry as he continued west until he could drive no more. He reached Missoula, Montana and found a clean bed and a hot bath, having driven like an automaton, not fully appreciating the stunning snow-dressed scenery as he’d passed through it. His reflexes kept him safe on the road and his body told him when to eat, so it was just miles of asphalt, gas stations, and roadside eateries, which continued the next mentally hazy day all the way to Seattle and up to Port Angeles. He missed the last ferry of the day across to Vancouver Island by a couple hours, so he once again fed Sushi, fed himself, and hit the sack in a convenient motel.
THE PAIN SHE sensed subsided eventually, and beneath the sense of movement within the darkness, there was now an ancient, ceaseless rhythm, a deep pulse like the sea she had once dipped her toes in. She had toes? Maybe not now, but she was certain that she once had, and they had felt the rhythm of waves and the pull of a tide. Serenity enveloped her, and she drifted into something more like a sleep than the usual limbo.
Waking Anastasia Page 4