by Joseph Lallo
“Tell me what must be done.”
“First, help me sit.”
Samuel maneuvered behind Mara. He slid his hands underneath her arms and pulled her up until she was able to rest her back against the cave wall. Samuel heard her whimper as the movement agitated her wounds. He waited while she drew deep breaths.
“Do you remember our time in the coffee shop? In the dream?”
Samuel grinned. He pictured her dolled up in maroon-red lipstick and hip-hugging, black denim stretched across all of the right places.
“Yes.”
“Good. I wish I could say we’re going back there, but we’re not. But we have to do the same thing to go somewhere else, a place you’ll find painful.”
Samuel looked at the black fingers silently scratching their way down the wall.
“It will wait until we’re finished,” she said, following his gaze.
“What should I do?” he asked.
“Nothing. Let me lead. Once we’re there, you’ll know what to do.”
“Where are we going?”
“I can’t answer all of your questions, Samuel. You’ll need to trust me. Can you trust me?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “But I’m coming back alone, aren’t I?”
Mara smiled. “Take my hand and don’t let go.”
Samuel maneuvered his hand into hers. He felt her cold, clammy skin, and he shuddered, imagining what it would feel like in the near future. Mara’s skin looked translucent, as if her very essence was fading with the approach of the reversion. Her hair looked greasy and thin, and her eyes were sunk deep into their sockets.
“I’m going to close my eyes and when I do, you should, too. We’ll be somewhere different, and yet we’ll still be here. I can’t explain.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Mara,” he said, “I hope the crossing of our paths helps you. I hope you get peace.”
“We all deserve peace,” she said.
Mara closed her eyes and Samuel followed her lead. He felt the ground sway, and the electrical thrumming returned to his feet and shot through his legs to his torso. Samuel heard a brush of air move across his skin. The breeze felt different than the air in the cavern. Mara’s hand pulsed in his, a quick jolt to let him know she was still there. Samuel arrived in his not-so-distant past.
***
“C’mon, Sammy. ‘Tis the season.”
He looked into his friend’s face, red and swollen from Christmas cheer in the form of whiskey bottles and wine carafes.
“I can’t, man. I have to get home. Kim’s going to be worried sick.”
John held up one finger while the other hand came close to letting the aged whiskey jump the lip on his glass and land on the expensive Berber carpet in the boss’s living room. The chilly Detroit December made it even more difficult to leave the party. Samuel looked around the room and chuckled. A few of his coworkers were making obscene gestures with ornaments they grabbed from the tree while the shy ladies of the office sat on a couch, sipping mint schnapps stirred with candy canes. The aroma of ginger and chocolate floated by on the notes of John Lennon’s famous Christmas melody. Samuel had lost sight of the boss, who was upstairs going over the sales figure of his administrative assistant.
“Check it,” Johnny said. He held a black, plastic object in one hand.
“One of the new smartphones. No more shitty signals for me. Got the full voice and data plan.”
“That’s sweet. How’s coverage?” Samuel asked, slipping into the tech talk that came so naturally to him.
“Everywhere. Try it out. Call Kim and let her know you’re fine.”
“I gotta go.”
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Dude, just call her and get yourself another whiskey sour.”
Johnny handed Samuel the phone and began picking his way through the people hovering near the natural-gas fireplace. Samuel made more small talk with the group before pushing toward the den, where the hired bartender stood with a gaping yawn. He dialed his number, and the digits on the LCD display made Samuel squint at the device.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
“Hello?”
The voice came through the pinhole on the earpiece.
“Hey, hon.”
“Sam. What time is it?”
He looked down at his watch with the company logo crested in the middle of the face.
“Early evening, I think.” As soon as he said it, Samuel cringed, knowing he should have been more precise to prove his sobriety.
“Everything okay?” Kim asked.
“Yeah, fine. Johnny gave me his new smartphone to call you. It’s one of those—”
“Sam,” Kim said, cutting off his excitement about the newest gadget he would have to own. “You’re leaving now, I assume.”
“Sorry. Listen, I’m going to hang here with the guys, telling office jokes and making fun of each other’s nine irons. Gonna be a bit later.” The pause forced Samuel to look at the phone’s touch-screen display to make sure it had did not dropped the call. “Kim?”
“Get a cab,” she said.
“Honey, I’m fine. I’ve already started on the black coffee,” Samuel said, looking at the whiskey in his opposite hand.
“Samuel,” she said with a tone that made his heart ache.
“Really, I’m fine. Keep the back porch light on.”
He heard the rustling of the comforter on the other end. Samuel could see her dark hair spread across the black, flannel sheets they put on the bed for winter. He could smell the conditioner in her hair, which would have been blown dry and brushed. Samuel could almost feel the smoothness of her skin from a leg shave in the tub and moisturizing bath salts. He felt his mouth go dry, seeing his wife’s naked body buried beneath the mounds of bedding like a gift, waiting for his arrival.
“Please be careful.”
Samuel took a deep breath and nodded until he remembered Kim was not in the room.
“I will. And Kim?”
“Yes?”
He looked around the room at several people within earshot and reconsidered what he was about to say.
“Nothing. Love you. See you later tonight.”
“Okay, Sam.”
A click followed, and Samuel handed the sleek phone back to his friend.
“We all good?” Johnny asked.
“All good,” Samuel said.
They sat at the table in the dining room, where the boss reappeared. His administrative assistant sat on the couch with the other ladies of the office, her hair wispy and her lipstick in need of some touch up.
“Cards, anyone?”
“It’s a Christmas party, boss. We can’t play poker,” Johnny said.
“Holiday party,” his boss said. “The wife and kids are gone for the weekend. This is anything I want it to be.”
Samuel looked over his shoulder at the ladies gathered on the couch, and then at the men around the table.
“Who’s dealing?” Samuel asked.
The poker game played out as most do. A forgetful carousel of laughter, dick jokes and evaluations of female anatomy. The ladies on the couch left to return home to their balding husbands, who would lay a paunch on their stomachs for the two minutes it would take to finish the job. A few observers stood behind the table, pretending to be amused by the entertainment only gamblers can enjoy.
Samuel looked at his stack of chips and shook his head. He had cashed in twice, and there were no bills left in his wallet. Johnny saw him look and flashed Andrew Jackson at him from under the table. Samuel shook his head, even though he found the offer to borrow money for more chips tempting.
“I’ve only got one or two more hands in me, fellas.”
“Keep your desk next to Fagboy Davidson and you’ll have more than one or two hands in you, if you know what I’m saying.”
Samuel la
ughed at the vulgar homophobia. He knew it was offensive, but it was also funny. Davidson was still in the closet, although some might say he had one foot sticking out, and it wore a red pump.
“It’s already dark, and Kim’s going to want me to fix the leaky faucet before I go to bed tonight.”
“You fucking family men,” Johnny said. “You’re always getting told what to do by the ball and chain.”
The table roared with laughter, and Samuel waved them off, feeling the Catholic guilt his parents used to raise him.
“One more for me, then I’m done,” he said.
“That’s what she said,” came from another seat at the table, which pitched the group into more laughter.
“Then you’ll need this to help it down.”
Johnny poured the whiskey from the bottle directly into Samuel’s glass. He slammed it down on the table and slapped Samuel on the back.
“To Sammy and his family. May he find an easy way to get his wife to consent to a three-way and bring some fun into his boring, suburban life.”
Samuel smiled and raised his glass while the other poker players clinked theirs, throwing their chins skyward to help ease the liquid down their throats.
The hand finished with Samuel losing again. He over-bet the last round in hopes of losing and not cashing out his chips. The self-sabotage worked in his favor, allowing him to rise from the table with an empty whiskey glass as well as an empty wallet.
“Fellas,” he said with an exaggerated bow. “Unfortunately, I will see all of you assholes at the office on Monday.”
Another round of laughter filled the room.
“Boss,” he said, raising a hand in the air, “you do have the best office parties. I’ll give you that.”
With a few more salutations and even more good-natured insults, Samuel searched through the coatrack until he found his black leather. He pushed a curtain aside and looked out at the new round of snow covering his car, making it look like a lump in a bowl of poorly mashed potatoes. Samuel fished through his pockets until he felt his car keys and fisted them in one hand. With a final glance, he looked back at the table to wave, but the poker game had already moved on after his departure. Samuel opened the door and stepped into the chilly, swirling snow. He pulled the collar of his coat tight around his neck and trudged to the driver’s side door.
Samuel’s fingers lumbered around the keyhole, becoming numb in the process. He cursed at the cold air gnawing at him and then swore at the battery in his keys, which were no longer able to open the locks with the magic of infrared rays. He used the tip of the key to scrape the ice crystals from the lock and managed to push it inside. The tumbler surrendered with a click. Samuel shoved his frozen fingers underneath the handle and lifted, dispensing the foggy haze from the dome light into the frigid air. He sighed, blowing plumes of mist before pouring himself into the driver’s seat. Samuel shut the door and leaned back on the headrest. The world ramped up on a conveyor belt that started turning everything in a clockwise motion. He opened his eyes and focused on the steering wheel until the car stopped spinning.
“The cold air,” he said.
Samuel placed the key in the ignition, and the car turned over, coughing and wheezing with mechanical influenza. The radio came alive, and he thrust a finger at the presets. Some nameless vanilla hard-rock song came on, which made Samuel’s churning stomach even worse. He punched the power button with his right hand while hitting the power window button with his left. The subzero air poured into the car. Samuel felt it burn his lungs before putting the window back up.
He gunned the gas pedal several times and released the parking brake. Samuel thought of Kim, but their conversation was an ink blot, dark and formless. He decided she would want him home on a night like this, where he could spoon with her, both of them staying warm. That thought brought a smile to his face.
I can do this. Been drinking coffee all night long.
“You fucking dog,” he said to the empty car. “You have, but you’ve been dropping whiskey with it.”
Samuel laughed at his own dishonesty before putting the car into drive. He had already pulled from the curb before he realized he hadn’t cleared the snow. The hard, white precipitation covered his windows and protected him from the reality on the other side. Samuel put the windshield wipers into motion. The motor hummed and then rattled, but the wipers remained buried in the snow piled at the base of the windshield.
“Dammit.”
He reached under the seat for his trusty ice scraper and came up with the broken bottom half of it. Samuel tossed it into the back seat and opened the door. The wind tore at his face and whipped his hair into maniacal formations. Samuel pulled his coat sleeve over his hand and used his arm to clear as much of the snow from the windshield as possible. With a round porthole cleared, he stepped back into the car and set the defrost fan to the high setting.
Samuel’s bladder decided he did not have time to wait for the defroster to clear the window. Departure, and urination, was imminent. He bent low and craned his neck to look through the hole he had scraped. It wasn’t much, but Samuel thought he could navigate the car for the ten-minute drive to his house. He would stay under the limit, and he would stay alive.
Samuel navigated by alternately sticking his head outside the driver’s side window and then looking through the porthole, which allowed him to stay on the road. He successfully avoided parked cars, sidewalks, and garbage cans awaiting pickup.
The first car passed with its horn blaring and then fading into the distance like a locomotive in an old western film. He thought he may have heard the driver yelling, but he couldn’t be sure. Samuel pulled the vehicle hard to the right, assuming he had drifted into the oncoming lane.
“Couple more turns and I’m home,” he said to no one.
He followed the plows and salt trucks through Detroit’s wealthier suburbs as they made their rounds, the last ones before the shift change and a watery cup of warm coffee back at the garage. Samuel concentrated on the blinking lights while the salt pummeled the front end of his car like a localized hailstorm. When the truck turned right toward city hall and the truck garage behind it, Samuel remained on the road. He looked into his rearview mirror and saw black, the narrow secondary streets not equipped with the streetlights like the main thoroughfares. The cold and the darkness closed in, and Samuel felt the need to leave his window all the way down. The bitter, winter air seeped in like a shot of insulin to a diabetic in shock. He sat up straight and blinked. Samuel looked at the street sign and then recalibrated his bearings, figuring he was only three or four miles from his house. In one more mile, he would take a right onto Route 24 for the one-mile stretch that would dump him at the foot of the development. The snow relented, but the chill did not.
As Samuel turned onto the local highway, he saw headlights approaching, the first since he left the party. He glanced down at the gauges and felt for the seatbelt strap, hoping to avoid getting pulled over and then having a seatbelt fine on top of it.
In an instant, the headlights doubled from two to four. He saw the first set snap out into his lane and then wink as the car slid sideways, fishtailing on the slick roadway. The driver regained control and pulled the vehicle back into his own lane. But it sent the second set of headlights into a spin of its own and into a collision course with his car. Samuel became so enamored with the scene, he didn’t notice he let his vehicle drift.
Samuel’s vehicle struck the oncoming car, creating an impact that crumpled the other car’s hood, sending it into an upside-down V, like a cheap accordion. He felt the brunt of the impact, which threw him toward the passenger side and then the seatbelt snapped him back. He felt his car spin and strike three more times, unsure what he was hitting. The sound of crunching metal made him wince. All he wanted was for the car to stop moving, even if it meant slamming straight into a tractor-trailer. Samuel waited and waited, the seconds feeling like lifetimes. When it finally stopped, he was fa
cing the opposite direction on the highway, his passenger side door stuck to the guardrail.
The silence lasted for a few seconds. His ears rang and the adrenaline spiked his bloodstream. Samuel felt the warm, sticky blood flowing into his left ear, and he winced. He did a mental check and realized he was alive and without serious injury. The euphoria of that revelation lasted until he looked out the other side of the car at the discarded mess of steel balled up next to the opposite guardrail.
Samuel climbed from his car and limped over the frozen roadway toward the other vehicle. He thought he remembered two sets of headlights, but either that vehicle fled or the whiskey had created the extra set of lights. He smelled gasoline and burning rubber, while drops of sizzling liquid pooled in the roadside ice. He looked both ways and saw nothing but the dead of winter. Somewhere beyond his vision, a distant siren blared.
A groan from inside the mangled metal brought his attention back. Samuel approached, unsure where the front of the vehicle could be. He saw twisted steel, dark plastic and scraps of humanity thrown together inside the death cage. He walked toward the car and stepped over a hockey stick, followed by a book. The closer he came, the more personal belongings he stepped over.
The car’s dinging door alarm was on but struggling to maintain sound, as if it was covered in thick foam. Samuel saw the steering wheel contorted like a pretzel as he looked inside the gaping wound where the windshield used to be. He saw the small, delicate frame of a young woman, the seatbelt tight against her throat. Jet-black hair covered her face. Samuel shoved his face inside and heard the ragged, desperate sound of her lungs. He looked at her painted fingernails wrapped around the steering wheel. The smell of exhaust mingled with blood made him queasy.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
As soon as he spoke the words, he felt like a fool. He could not bear to ask the question he really wanted to ask.
“I’ll get help.”
He spun and remembered the Italian restaurant fifty yards up the highway. It was probably getting close to closing time, but an old phone booth stuck out near the guardrail like a beacon of hope. Samuel had just spun toward it when he felt the warm, weak grip on his hand. He jumped and let out a muffled cry.