The Trials of Solomon Parker

by Eric Scott Fischl

  “Uncle, I remember, though. I remember. With my friend Sol and the fires and the rest of it. You were there, Uncle. You were there. Sol remembered too.”

  “Nephew, did my brother tell you the story about Raven and the branch? The ants? My brother was obsessed with that story particularly. He was convinced that he saw the true way of the world, this one and all the others that came before.”

  Marked Face sighs, getting up and crossing the room, sitting down on the cot next to Billy. He takes one of Billy’s hands in his own, the fingers bony and scarred and twisted. He won’t meet Billy’s eyes. “Nephew, remember this: remember your father, my mother, that uncle of ours. I’m sorry, I don’t know anything of what you say. I haven’t been anywhere but around this reservation, for years upon years. It’s good that you have that job, there at that hospital. My brother, he was about your age when it started to go bad for him. The stories were so strong that they made a world for him, different than this one. You say your white friend remembers me? Maybe you believe so strongly that your stories have confused the world for him, too. I don’t know how these things work, Nephew. Sometimes, though, I think lives and stories get twisted together. Me and my brother, my brother and his tales of the Old Ones, you and this white man. I don’t know.”

  Billy’s breath is hot in his chest; he can feel the pulsing of his blood inside him. His head pounds even harder. He turns to look at his uncle, searching for that cold, mocking smile but, when Marked Face raises his gaze from the floor, all Billy sees is deep sadness there.

  “My brother was about your age, Sagiistoo. Remember that. There is only one world, Nephew. As cruel and bitter as it is at times, there is only this one. We are those ants walking around the branch, maybe but, even broken, the branch is the same. Take care that my brother’s stories don’t crawl inside your head, Nephew. Sometimes I wonder if we are cursed, the People, because of the things we have had to endure. We can’t all be strong. There is no shame in this. You need to find your father and go back to that place, hey? You need to go back to that place so you can be kept safe.”

  FIRST AND LAST WARNING

  – 1917 –

  Butte, Montana

  1.

  Sol looks around his office from behind the huge, darkly polished desk. The whiskey glass in his hand glints in the glittered light of the cut-crystal chandelier, the one he’d had installed a few months ago at ridiculous cost. It’s maybe a bit overlarge for the room, but it’s impressive, nonetheless, an icy monstrosity of a thing looming down from overhead. It had taken a while to get used to, to subdue a vague urge to duck when he walks under it but, now, he wouldn’t have the fixture removed for any reason.

  It might not fit the room, not exactly, but neither does he: they are both cold and massive things that dominate this space.

  He carefully lights up one of his cigars, trying not to wince on that first inhale. He’s been smoking them for a few years now, but has yet to really get a taste for them. They’re still a bit reminiscent of burning trash to him but, like the chandelier, that smell is a part of the room and it belongs. Sol only smokes the cigars – again, the most expensive ones he can find – in this opulent, absurd office of his. He enjoys the whiskey – oh, that he enjoys – and the soft leather of his chair, the massive bulk of the huge desk in front of him. He loves that low, jaggedy light dropping from the chandelier and the way that sound in the room muffles and dies in the thick rugs on the floor, gets trapped by the shelves of unread, leatherbound books that line the walls. As for the cigars, well, even Sol has sacrifices he must make, these days. Appearances must be maintained.

  Alone with his whiskey and this horrible cigar burning the taste of garbage into his mouth, Sol can’t help but chuckle at what a fucking caricature he’s become, when he thinks about it, infrequently though that is. David Solomon Parker, the boss, these seven years now. Lucky seven, he would have called it, back when he was a gambling man. Not any more, though; he’s done with all that. Now he’s only the boss.

  He owns taverns and hop-houses, brothels and cribs, diners and cafés and hardware stores and apartment blocks. He has a gold-ringed finger in a hundred pies, legitimate and not; here in this very room he does business with Company high-ups and their associated minions. He lunches with the mayor, from time to time, is a member in good standing of the Ancient Order of Hibernians – although he is about as Irish as a rabbi – the Elks, Odd Fellows. The Sons of St George, for good measure. Laughing at the irony of it, given his line of work, Sol contributes from his deep pockets to the WCTU, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, the Florence Crittenden Rescue Circle.

  His suits are bespoke, his house a mansion, and the size of his bank holdings – those that exist on paper – would gag Midas himself. He dines with the most lovely or well-connected women of Butte and fucks only the very finest of whores. Old as he is, Sol is the one of the most eligible bachelors in town these days, truly a catch. Even as fat has he’d gotten lately. He slaps his belly, appreciatively. The flab just adds more substance to him, more weight.

  A fucking caricature.

  The dreams still get him, sometimes, at night, but that’s nighttime and the days make it worthwhile, usually.

  The end of Sean Harrity had been an ugly thing. By the time it was over, what was left of Sean’s face was almost unrecognizable as a man’s, the back of his skull pounded to a splintery mush against the floor. Sol’s screaming drowning out Sean’s own, by the end. Until quiet came back, just the gasp of breath, Mickey mewling from the floor. The bones in Sol’s right hand had never healed straight. Nancy, though, poor Nancy died from the gunshot wound after a couple of bad days. The bullet he’d taken that, by rights, should have been Sol’s. It was a shame, but there it was. Best not to think on it overmuch, now. That was years ago; it was done. Might come back at night from time to time, the memory shivery and sweaty, but it was done.

  As for consequences: here they were. This office, the money, the women, the lot of it. Another joke in the long series of jokes that comprised his life. Some funny, some not, but none of them mattered once you got the trick of seeing them for what they were, seeing life for what it is: a fucking joke.

  It turned out, logically enough, that the people with whom Sean did business, legitimate or not, were more interested in continuity than anything else, so when word got out that Mr Sean Harrity had left Butte for parts unknown – Hell, in this particular case – Sol merely stepped in as the heir apparent, came into his own. He’d always had a skill for making men trust in and rely on him; running Sean’s business was not unlike running a mucker crew, writ larger and more complicated, for sure, but Sol had a knack for it. It was mostly man-management, at the root of things. Build relationships, find capable men as employees or partners, and treat them in the right way. The boss as a stern parent, magnanimous as required but taking no shit.

  Of course, he’d made some mistakes; that was natural as he was finding his feet. Some of his new business associates saw a vacuum, tried to cheat or chisel away at the edges, if not outright take the bread from his plate. Sol had had to take some action, then, here and there, make an example or two. He found that, now, he had something new to add to his reputation: he was feared, even more so than before. Sol Parker was the man who had removed that evil bastard Sean Harrity, and that wasn’t a man to take lightly. Sol, then, well, best step careful around him. Show the appropriate respect.

  There’s a light, hesitant tapping at the door. “Yeah,” Sol calls out in a puff of garbage-smelling smoke. He rinses his mouth with a wash of good whiskey, tries to peel out the taste of cigar. “What?”

  The door opens a crack and one-eyed Mickey Doyle sticks his head in. He mumbles something Sol’s way, that watery, remaining eyeball of his staring at the floor.

  “Goddamn it, Mickey, how many times do I have to tell you to just come in? Quit sticking your head in like a fucking muttering jack-in-the box and come over here.” Even now, after all this time, there’s still sat
isfaction in goading the fat fuck. Although, any more, Mickey isn’t even fat, is he? He’s unhealthy looking, is what he is, loose-limbed and shambling, the skin hanging off him like a suit that doesn’t quite fit any more, which Sol imagines is more or less the case. His color has yellowed. Sallow, poorly shaven face like chicken skin. A pucker of scar reaches from his left cheekbone to his brow, crumpling that side of his face into an uneven, unseemly mass over the empty socket.

  Mickey is paying, still, for the lies he’d told about Nancy, the ones that had gotten the boy killed. Easy enough for Sol to just kill Mickey and be done with it, but these long years of fear and servitude are so much better, so much more just. Sol is honestly surprised that Mickey has held on this long, really, what with the state of his health, the ulcers and the nerves and the constant, whispering fear that Sol is finally going to make good on what he promised and do something to him that will make what happened to Sean seem like a kiss from a beautiful girl. You got to earn your life back, Mickey. Convince me that you deserve it, after what you did. Otherwise, what’s going to happen to you is going to give nightmares to the hardest fucking men in town, hey? At first, he’d wondered if Mickey had anything left inside him, if he would try to come at him in one way or another. If he’d ever had anything, though, it had departed along with that popped eyeball. Sometimes a fight is over before it really begins.

  And, to be honest, it’s entertaining, trying to push Mickey to the edge of things. It’s a perquisite of power, really, to play with a man like this. Godlike, in some small way. That’s the extent of Sol’s religion any more, a belief that, if there is a deity, it’s only there to fuck with those creatures weaker than it. Tomorrow he’ll yell at Mickey for coming into the office instead of sticking his head in, as ordered. Always keeping him off-balance.

  Mickey is standing there now, in front of the big desk, eye on the ground, worrying an envelope in his hand, smoothing a finger and thumb down the edge of it, over and over. “Well, you just going to stand there, Doyle?” Mickey looks up, startled, and starts to sit in one of the heavy leather chairs facing the desk. “The fuck are you doing? Get out of my chair!” This last said at a bellow, Sol half-standing from his own seat.

  Mickey pops up like that jack-in-the-box again, taking a step forward, to the side. Rubbing at that envelope still, though, in his distress, he seems to have forgotten that it’s in his hand. It’s hard for Sol to keep the smile from his face. Why does he even stick around? he thinks, from time to time. World’s a big place, just go. But Sol’s forbidden it, and Mickey just doesn’t have the sand in him to disobey. It’s fascinating, really, just how thoroughly broken a man can get, given the proper pressures.

  “Well? That for me? And I’ll thank you not to grub it all up like that, shitheel.”

  Mickey remembers the envelope then, quickly passes it over to Sol after smoothing it one last time, and stands there uncertainly. He waits for whatever derision is coming next.

  Sol opens the envelope and stares at the contents. “Go on, then,” he says, distractedly. “Get out of here.” He reads the telegram again, those eight short words calling up a wash of forgotten feeling from down low in his chest. He finishes his whiskey and pours another, the cigar burning abandoned in its tray, smoke curling upward, hanging around his head in a pall.

  Sol knocks back his drink, pours another.

  2.

  ELIZABETH PASSED. SERVICE TUESDAY. COME WARM SPRINGS. – BILLY

  It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Just a matter of time, really. Maybe for the best, when it came right down to it, because it wasn’t like she’d had much of a life. These were the kinds of things one told oneself, and it might have been true, even. Regardless, when Billy tries to make himself believe it, the words feel hollow.

  He’d handed the form to the Western Union man, paying the fee without comment. Left, then, walking down the road to the crappy little tavern he frequents more and more these days. He never used to be much of a drinker, was afraid of what it would do to him and, yet, here he is, damn near whenever he can. It doesn’t appear to have done him much harm over the years, though, aside from this gut he carries around, the dugs that sag on his chest. He’s fat. Never thought to see that day, but here it is. Fat Billy Morgan.

  The bartender gives him a nod, pulling up a mug of beer for him, scraping off the foam with a paddle. Billy nods back, acknowledging a couple of the other regulars, tired, shabby old fuckers like himself, and takes his beer back to his normal corner table. He’s a regular, too, but not a talker. The bar is just a place, fairly quiet, usually, where Billy can be alone with his thoughts. It’s mostly empty inside, the air thick and lazy with cigarette smoke and the low mutter of conversation, punctuated by the occasional cackle.

  Billy takes a long, slow sip of his beer. He’s still in his orderly’s whites and, when he brings his arm up to light his cigarette, he sees the splash of blood brown-dark against his sleeve. The stain doesn’t want to come out. He shakes his head and sighs, pulling the smoke into his chest.

  He’d been the one to find her, tucked away in one of the cow stalls. Sitting there leaned back against the wooden wall, a surprised, puzzled look on her face. The hay wet underneath her. Maybe the end is always a surprise, even when you bring it on yourself. Was there a moment, right there at the last, when she thought no wait even though, by then, it was too late? I take it back. More likely the look on her face is just pure physiology, the sag of muscles after the animating force has left. But, still, it almost looked like she was just sitting there, biding her time, waiting to get up, wondering why she couldn’t. Regardless of the reason, Billy just wishes that she’d looked more peaceful. Passed, he’d written. Such a quiet euphemism. As if she’d just gone somewhere. Which Billy supposes she has, not that he really believes that she’s anywhere now. It’s a pleasant fiction, though. She’s gone to her reward. She’s with the angels now. Called home.

  It had taken him a while to write the text of the telegram, before settling on passed. Not that he would have used one of those more flowery phrases, particularly given who he was sending it to, but Elizabeth is dead seemed too harsh, too final, even to him. And he damn sure couldn’t have put down Your wife has finally cut her throat.

  He takes another swallow of beer, smokes quietly for a while. How did she keep finding ways to hurt herself, he wonders. It was a mystery to him and all the other orderlies. After so many years at the hospital with her, Billy thought he knew all her little idiosyncrasies, could plan around them. But, sure enough, once or twice a year, he or one of the others would find her with a piece of broken glass, a kitchen knife, once an awl from the shop. The only thing that even made it remotely close to acceptable – which it wasn’t – was the fact that she would always cause some kind of drama, once she had the thing in her hand. Cry, scream, rage at them. As if, deep down, she wanted someone to stop her, to help her.

  But not this time. For one reason or another she’d just taken a shard of glass, from wherever it was that she found it, gone into the barn and quietly laid her neck open. Died surprised and alone, surrounded by cowshit and hay that needed mucking.

  Wait, I take it back.

  Billy drains his beer and fetches another from the bar. It’s not your fault, Dr Rideout had said, squeezing him on the shoulder. You did everything you could. Wasn’t enough, though, was it? She was a tragic woman, really. He respected Dr Rideout mightily but, right then, he’d felt a flare of anger. Elizabeth Parker wasn’t a tragedy. Tragedy implied something had just happened to her. There was no responsibility in it, it said nothing had been done to her, when, really it had. More and more, Billy thinks that the terrible things that happen in his life are just because he, himself, is in it. That he’s poisoned it. Twisted everyone’s stories into his own, maybe, like his uncle had said, that time. Could be, if Billy had never known Sol, never met Elizabeth, she would have been just fine. The two of them would have raised up a baby into a man and did whatever it is that married people
did after that. Dug a garden, maybe. Sang in the church choir on Sundays.

  But even Billy knows that’s all bullshit. Sometimes his thoughts get away from him, though, which happens more and more these last years. Particularly when he’s feeling low. Some days it’s hard to even get out of bed, to crawl out from the weight of the blackness hanging over him. Other days it’s as if his mind reels out from itself, bringing him along to places he shouldn’t be going. Showing him thoughts he shouldn’t be having. He worries that he’s becoming like his father.

  Billy isn’t crazy. He tells himself that, regardless of the things his uncle had said. The things his father had said, about seeing the world a little too truly. Even with the depression and the rages and that other side of things, when nothing looks quite right, not exactly, when things are just a shade out of kilter, he knows he isn’t crazy. He’s not like his father, not at all. But maybe he’s getting closer. Just maybe, some days. It would be a lie if he said he didn’t fret about it, which is why he’s stayed at the hospital all these years. The job is still as lousy as it always was, even more so, in some ways, now that there are so many more patients and the staffing hasn’t kept pace. Dr Rideout does everything he can, but funding and the board and all the rest of it. Being an orderly – head orderly, these days – is a shit job but Billy feels safer at the hospital. Just in case, just in case.

  He never thinks about that other life he thought he once had. Tries not to, anyway. There have been times when he’s wanted to confide in Dr Rideout, tell him the story, his fears, but he’s never been able to bring himself to do so. So, instead, Billy just does his best to shrug his thoughts away from all that but, sometimes, it sneaks up on him, an echo of the person he once was. Thought he once was. A particular image, the sound of a voice, a smell. Another life. Or maybe Marked Face is right, after all.