[first, The Chemist, The Engineer, & The Poison of Amerwoncik; The Melting Man; The Marauder’s Trap; Conversations with the Seven Devil Nation; The Return; and then, The Violent End of Sensei Ki-Jo.]
[they start]
Holy shit—
That’s fucking ridicu—
I know, I know. I was there. It was…quite a sight. Now, talking about it all like it’s scenes from some movie, it’s fantastical but being there, just actually doing these things – it’s like a laundry list, things that happened long time ago, things I don’t much think about. Except the arrows. The flaming arrows coming at Sensei Ki Jo’s place, that was—they were…breathtaking. Ez—ecc—ecssquisite. Recommend it, sort of.
Off track.
I got my crew, Steve and Travis. They went to Philly, and we contacted another man named Augustus…
[sips his drink, thinks, lifts the champagne glass]
Lift your drinks to…to Augustus.
[they lift their drinks, clink, sips]
He died a good man. Mistakes, yeah. But a good man.
[looks off in a moment of silence; continues]
While we were at Sensei Ki Jo’s, I mean, it was obvious the two men had started…fooling around the day after they started. There was just an air to them. They didn’t speak about it or anything but I could tell they were…together.
Oh my—[catches himself] Sorry.
David the homophobe, huh?
No, you know I’m not a homophobe. There was just a mental picture in there that I wasn’t braced for—don’t worry, go on. We’re listening.
I think it’s beautiful.
I’m sure you do, Chris.
See, now I feel like shit. I’m not homophobic. You know I’m all for gay rights.
I’m just fucking with you, broseph. You’re more tolerant than I am, actually. ‘Cause my first reaction was to send them home and reneg on the deals I had offered them. Last thing I wanted when I was protecting myself was to homosexuals in a lover’s quarrel. But, truthfully, it helped bring us together as a unit.
They never fought. They never even argued – most I ever saw was a half-drunk discussion that ended with them wrestling, and Steve always won. He was prolly the…pitcher…
Anyway…
We followed the clues.
Man whose name you’ll probably remember, Mans el-Ray Pasquale – he had been privy to some information. The way it seemed, he found out too much and got hisself killed but, in actuality, he was a member of the Seven Devil Nation like I was, a prominent kid that went to an Ivy League school and joined politics.
That reminds me, I wanna get into politics but—we’ll talk about that later. Go on…
O…kay, David.
Mans el-Ray Pasquale planned to detonate several bombs under the city uhhh, the city convention center. Motivations are a bit cloudy but the bottom line involved money, as they usually do. Five in all, we found out, under the convention center by way of the subway system.
Broad Street Line?
Yup. So, we stopped them. My crew with the reconnaissance and, with a number from Bartleby, the mercenaries.
It was all…I mean, it’s all meaningless, in the end.
The Seven Devil Nation has wind of this, that there’s billions in precious metal off the coast of Iran. And they supported the original plan to kill the Senator leading the charge—or at least knew of it—so they’ll continue until they’re successful.
Philadelphia is safe but the Senator moved on to Baltimore for now so…
They’ll get what they want.
Eventually, they get what they want.
Even at the cost of some lives, for the sake of many.
I don’t know how you would even begin to fight against them but, at some point, I’m probably going to have to try.
What happened to Mans el-Ray Pasquale?
I threw him in front of a subway train.
Damn…I really enjoyed saying his name.
Steve and Travis, they used to have these awful nicknames for each other. It sort of started out as…as a Who-Can-Make-The-Worst-Nickname type of game.
Sugarfarts.
Puffy Nips.
Dick Butter.
Frankfurt and Bones were the two most common but they had a ton, all awful. It was one of the few things that – it would usually crack me up but it did gross me out a bit.
Travis was shot in the belly when we were gathering the bombs.
Someone hid and shot him.
The contacts, they got the bomb and made it back with Travis…bleeding, gut-shot, they made it back to the boathouse. And he died there. Steve and I were with him. We—I’ve killed a lot of people.
[large sigh]
Wow, that’s the first time I think…I’ve said that and feel how true it is. I’ve…I’ve killed many men. All of them…well, most of them deserved it but, you know, by those standards someone could murder me clear of conscience. But Travis slipping away was the first time that I—that I really felt someone leave, felt the shell empty.
Steve was crying so hard and it was…he was telling him that he would take him off to the kingdom.
[mournful glance off]
What…what did it feel like?
It felt like a light went off, in a way. Like, like a shadow moved in the room that wasn’t there. It’s a hollow feeling in the belly. The room, it shrinks. The universe feels smaller, the world feels tangible and you can sense it. That the world isn’t everything, it’s finite. It has an end when you circle it all the way around.
The soul exists and it…it goes somewhere.
I’m not religious, I don’t believe it goes to heaven or hell or anything, but it goes somewhere. Light from a flashlight, goes only so far. But that energy’s still out there. Battery to bulb to world throughout.
And Steve died a few hours later.
Pasquale and his two friends shot concentrated dry ice and disintegrated his lungs.
I felt him leave in much the same way, and we were on a crowded street surrounded by strangers. Yet he died in my arms and it was the world shrinking; the circle of crowd around us fell into shadows and the sun beat on us and it was us, him and I at the gateway. He turned his flashlight to me, then past me, then off and gone and I was left holding his body.
These men were my friends.
I hadn’t seen ‘em much while I was gone, while we were putting up the school and working on our business. I didn’t much need them the way I had before. They worked in outsourcing, had good jobs together. Ones where they traveled, worked in their fields, and I talked to them sometimes. Only ever over the internet, they didn’t come my way much.
It’s been…a while since someone died that I truly cared about.
[lifts his glass; joined by two more]
To Steve and Travis…
The heroes.
THE SOMBER NOTE ENDS
We make a brief detour in dour territory, where I contemplate life and the lives of my deceased gay friends.
The naked women meandering the VIP don’t interest us much while I talk but, as I end with a toast, two women walk over for our attention and money; they had been standing on the sidelines, watching as I told something that must have, from a distance, looked intense and captivating.
Both women are gorgeous.
One’s a brunette and one’s blonde, and both are dressed more than the other ladies in the room, tight black brassieres with long, skin-toned stockings. I’m sitting to the right, on the outside edge, with David and Chris on the inlet, a coffee table in front and the left outside edge vacant. The lights are a dim red and purple hue. The brunette straddles Chris and the blonde turns her behind to me and bends over the coffee table, provocatively. She pours herself and her friend a glass of our champagne.
“So I think I want to go into politics—” David begins but Chris abruptly interjects,
“You know that video I made for you, the one I showed you way back when, with the music and the trippy lights and everything—
you know that was a joke, right? David and I put together a real one but that was…we were just fucking with you. I had my friend put it together for his class.”
“Yeah,” I nod, my eyes on the blonde as she turns back to me. “I figured it out when I called all the stations and they said I was crazy, there was no way an ad could be nine minutes long.”
David and Chris laugh.
“But you two, you finished a real one?” I ask.
They both nod, all of us a little preoccupied with the women as they sit on the velvet couch, one across from me on the outer left edge and one between Chris and David.
“So…I want to get into politics,” David says for the third time, without interruption.
“Go on,” I urge, half talking to the blonde across from me as her fingers caress her body.
Neither woman has said a word yet.
“I want to go back to Philadelphia. I want to help the school system.”
“Good for you,” both Chris and I say in unison.
THE DIVERGENT LIFE
There is color and life – vibrant, exhilarating life.
There’s a large, rose-colored celebration, not dark. Not gray.
And Uncle Chris’ ex-girlfriend brought us into her house and she was really super nice and awesome, says Lizzy. She had a little baby that was adorable and her husband was like a real live lumberjack or something – we didn’t get to meet him but she was nice.
Wha’ ‘bou’ the fact tha’ yer daddy and I are gettin’ married? Kate asks her.
It’s – absolutely totally awesome! My daddy ain’t been as happy as he has since you bin’ with him.
Are you sure, sweetie? David asks.
Yes, daddy.
Good. Now please stop talking like a southerner.
Leave us, pa. Kate an’ I need ta have girl talk.
There are friends, plenty of friends – God, friends! And they sing to the music and dance and have a good time. There’s a delicious white wedding cake and a fountain of chocolate. There’s free booze, beer, and lots of champagne and appletinis and chardonnay and all that girly shit.
New friends smile while old friends shake hands.
Bethany – I’m so glad you came, I tell her and kiss her cheek. We mingle and I introduce her to Kate, who already knows her from some misshape involving the bar. Bethany Walker and I sit side-by-side during the ceremony, and she touches my hand – I’m grateful for it and we hold hands, even slow dancing during the reception afterwards. Pam Noel and Rough Ralph dance near us, an odd couple on the dance floor, one tiny and one large. Sadie and Chris also dance nearby and I catch them sharing an odd, unfamiliar look with each other – whatever the look is, it isn’t silly, which is what it always was before.
There’s happiness—fucking happiness everywhere, and laughter, infectious, booming laughter.
I’m there in my best tuxedo, my arms wrapped around Lizzy – she’s getting so big – and we’re moving together on the wooden dance floor. She’s standing on my toes, so beautiful, so much older and taller that it’s amazing how big she’s getting.
There’s an interruption near the front table, a clinging glass, signal to the DJ. The music lowers and eyes turn toward the sound.
A former porn star – a friend…he gives a speech:
“I…” he clears his throat, smiling at the attention of 100 people, “Where—where’s the best man?” he says to the head table, and my brother looks through the crowd until he finds me on the dance floor.
My friend finds me, too, and turns away from my brother.
And then he raises his glass extra high and shouts, “To sunshine, health, margaritas, and the beautiful women we love! To all the things that make us happy!”
And then I, well…I raise my glass in return.
A LOOSE END REMAINS
I had August look up the whereabouts of the man I had first know as Sam the Driver and later learned was Ryan D’Andrea – part of a generations-old crime family and nephew to a notorious, recently imprisoned Chicago criminal. It was because of this kid that Henry Fox in Chicago blackmailed me and, though I never intended to do much with the info, I found out the kid was, coincidentally, hiding near London. This was a detail I let slip to my brother and my brother reminds me of this in a text he sends while I’m in a cab taking me, finally, to my home:
DAVID: Sam Cranston is in London?
BROTHER: He was.
DAVID: Where?
BROTHER: 182 Church Road in Potter’s Bar. About an hour north of you.
DAVID: Maybe I’ll go visit him. Got a few days before the show and honeymoon and I’m running out of fun.
BROTHER: Take Chris with you. And you tell Sam to call me the instant you see him.
DAVID: Why?
BROTHER: Uh, I sort of fixed a problem he was having.
It’s evening when they leave and night when they arrive.
Chris naps and David drives the rental he finally got after unnecessarily losing money to cabs. The landscape grows hilly and empty as they move farther and farther north from the city. The GPS takes them to a small town with narrow, single-lane cobble stone streets. Each path is tight and stretches the length of the town entire, sparingly intersecting with almost mathematically precise perpendicular streets, like a grid. The town itself is comfy, a lot of orange glow from closed, opaque windows. Some store fronts have wood signs hanging overhead, most for pubs. There aren’t many wanderers on the sidewalk, which is about the length of a single, moderately sized person.
When Chris wakes, he realizes the car’s slowing to a stop and David’s turned, his eyes narrowed on the numbers to each home in a long row of two-story row homes. The car has closed in on the outskirts of the town, and row of homes ends just past the last street, the final three front doors facing the open land surrounding the minuscule town.
They park next to a grassy knoll, just off the side of the road.
When they exit the car, David thinks something nearby moves. He scans the landscape and finds only hedges, some flourishing green trees (vibrant even in the darkness), and open patches of grass heading toward local farms in every direction out.
Chris gets out of the car, stretches, yawns loudly.
Nothing else moves and David heads to the front door, Chris staggering through the sleep-induced fog. They approach the front door to #182 and knock. There’s a moment and David knocks again. On the third knock, the door opens and David comes face-to-face with Ryan D’Andrea a.k.a. Sam Cranston. He’s in a white tee-shirt and jeans, his muscles bulging with veins as if he had just stopped a routine of push-ups. His chest heaves.
There’s a moment where they meet eye-to-eye.
Ryan looks behind David, behind Chris, presumably at their car—but no, higher, farther behind—David feels the scruff of his shirt yanked down as debris hits him in the face.
There’s a flood of pricks and pracks against the wood frame.
Chris, next to David, is a moment late and something from behind jolts, spins, and shoves him fast and hard in through the front door, a puff of red in the air as the only evidence he had once stood there. Ryan keeps a hand on top of David’s head, pulling him into the apartment and pushing him to the floor of the living room. He grabs Chris’ limp body under the armpits and pulls him further in, kicking the door closed.
The door is forced back open as it bursts with a few dozen tiny pops, the hallway just past and the living room exploding with glass and plaster and debris and porcelain and wood and anything else in the room as the walls blow out with a hundred tiny explosions. The scene is almost poetic, slow, fluff and pillow feathers and shards from the eruption of the volcanic lights raining down in a symmetrical bedlam.
As David’s eyes barely register the mayhem, Ryan is flipping Chris over to check for a pulse. His eyes register nothing – not hope, not dismay – and he moves on, leaves Chris’ limp body, yelling so loud that David can actually hear him over the massive destruction still taking place.
From a
back hallway to the kitchen, there’s heavy movement.
Someone drops to the floor with a thud.
Ryan slithers on his belly toward the kitchen. In that instant, he makes a gesture, ensuring that David clearly understands to follow him. When they reach the kitchen, they crawl through a puddle of blood. A woman’s body lies limp on the tiled floor and David recognizes her before seeing her face: it’s Ryan’s girlfriend, the one that had taken massage classes with Sadie.
Ryan’s eyes fill with a fury that David has never seen in a human: His teeth bare in a large snarl, his eyes wild. He twists his head, looking around, and he smacks David, whose attention is solely on the woman and her penetrating, blank stare.
Everything’s happened so fast that David is in shock.
It takes several minutes until the shock has worn off – as it does, David notices he’s in a car with Ryan the Driver. There’s whisps of memory, of crawling out the back door to the garage in the back, then into the car, but nothing sticks and nothing stays as Ryan the Driver guns the engine. The car lurches forward and through the garage door. The sound is colossal and David can hear the faint sound of metal scraping metal, then metal grinding stone. Before the garage door has fallen from the hood of the silver BMW, the right side of the car explodes with tiny sparks. Ryan the Driver bends David’s head down in time to avoid the shots but David catches a glimpse:
There’s a man standing behind David’s rental car. An Asian man. Not just an Asian man, a familiar Asian man, one with multi-colored eyebrows and a scar under his eye. The glimpse is short – the man’s wearing all black, an assault rifle braced against his shoulder and firing at the car; as the car passes, Sinto runs to the driver’s seat of David’s rental car. Not a moment later, the lights are on, the car behind them, Hue Sinto continuing pursuit.
Ryan the Driver’s eyes remain unhinged, crazed; they rush over every inch of landscape as he maneuvers back into the town and down the narrow alleyway-like, cobblestone streets. The high beams are on, driving full speed and turning a narrow corner at 90 degrees. The car slides, the entire left side slamming into the wall and stopping the momentum like a bumper car. There’s a gunning engine, roar of tires, and the car shifts its momentum forward once more.
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