Ben Soul

by Richard George

thought of things that way.” She looked back at Haakon. “I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

  He turned to her and smiled a tight smile. “Offend me? Not at all. Astonish me? Absolutely.” He shifted his position so he faced her more than the cove. “Emma, I’m not good romance material. If you’d been around more men, you’d know that.”

  “I’m not the world’s greatest catch, either, Haakon. True, I’ve never been with any man but you, not in a carnal way, and I’ve never lived in a household with a man in it.” She turned her gaze on him. “I might not like it at all, and I might be too miserably set in my ways for anyone to endure. I can cook, keep house, and carry on a decent conversation, and those things should count for something.”

  “They count for a lot, especially the conversation. Before you push this any further, though, there’s something you should know about me.” Pain marched across Haakon’s face, aging him twenty years.” He cleared his throat a couple of times. Emma waited for him to go on. It didn’t seem like a good time to interrupt.

  “You should know, Emma, I wasn’t celibate in prison.” He cleared his throat again. He felt like he was speaking through a thick cloth stretched across his tonsils. Emma waited her concern showing on her face. “I was the kept man, the ‘bitch’ as prison lingo calls it, of another prisoner. It’s how I survived.” He looked directly at Emma, pleading for something, perhaps understanding? Perhaps forgiveness?

  “I presume your status meant you were his wife in prison.” Haakon nodded. “You did what you had to do,” Emma said. “That was then. We have to live in now.”

  “It’s nothing I’m proud of,” Haakon said. He looked away, toward the sea. “Some of it I enjoyed, and some of it I hated.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you prefer men?” Emma studied the wooden step her feet rested on.

  “No, though I sometimes found pleasure in the sex, it’s not my preference. I’m not sure, now, that I have any urges toward any kind of sex. I’m sort of worn out with the whole thing.” He coughed, and stared at the bit of sky he could see over the ocean.

  “Haakon,” Emma said, “please look at me.” Her quiet request was as much bidding as it was asking. Haakon tilted his head until he was almost leaning it on his own shoulder, and looked warily at her.

  “Whether we ever have sex again or not is not important. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I need a companion, a friend, to be with me on a steady basis. What I mean by romance is sharing life’s great extravaganzas and tiny moments with one important other person. I haven’t had much of that with anybody.”

  “Do you think we could make a go of such a thing?”

  “Yes, or I wouldn’t invite you.”

  “I’ll try it out, Emma,” Haakon said. “We’ll have to agree to be honest with each other about whether it’s working or not. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Emma said. She slid closer to him so she could take his hand. He took her other hand and looked into her eyes. Prime Pussy rumbled a purr, and extended one paw to pat Emma on the knee.

  Trials and Revelations

  Paige’s Peephole

  Paige Turner often accepted the Sheriff’s hospitality and spent a night in Cell 7. It was isolated from other cells, and quiet, even when the drunk tank was full of howling boozers. Paige had lived on the streets of Las Tumbas most of her adult life. Most of the deputies knew her by sight, and all knew she was the half-sister of the sheriff, Daniel Druff.

  Paige’s face, body, and wardrobe reflected the vicissitudes of twenty-plus years on the streets. Deep grooves surrounded her mouth and nose. Her costume was a stained sweatshirt above a pair of threadbare jeans. Her pale brown hair tangled in ringlets on her head, down her neck, and spilled over her shoulders in an untidy mass. Her perfume pleased no one except the occasional cockroach. Her blue eyes were her best feature. A love of all she saw sparkled and danced in them.

  Paige had a different perception of the Universe than most. She saw the world through what she called “a peephole in God’s muumuu.” This often meant she saw into other people’s subconscious mentation.

  The Las Tumbas Epitaph, the local newspaper, forecast a cold night. Paige, whose middle-aged skeleton had begun to grate on itself with arthritic buildup, chose to use her jailhouse privileges for the night. On this same night, Noah Count began his second twenty-four hours in the Las Tumbas jail.

  Noah was in severe withdrawal. He could not keep water on his stomach, let alone the heavy baked beans that had been the jailhouse supper. His limbs trembled, and perspiration drew rivers from his body. Perhaps he should have been in hospital, but the guards on duty that night had not schooled themselves in the medical aspects of withdrawal. Toward midnight he fell into a sleep nearer coma than restfulness.

  Paige woke to peer through her private peephole in God’s muumuu. She recognized several of the prisoners as either regular repeat offenders or those waiting for trial dates. A terrible clawed creature was feeding on one prisoner’s brain, siphoning the little gray cells through its aardvark-like snout. Paige gagged mentally and shifted her focus. She knew that unconscious mind belonged to an alcoholic homeless man with Alzheimer’s disease. He was a frequent guest at the jailhouse, too.

  One cell held only a great black hole. Paige probed tentatively at it. She got no response to her first few touches. Then, suddenly, she was swirling in a great maelstrom of evil. She spiraled down, terrified, drowning, toward a bottom that she never quite reached.

  Paige screamed, both in her peephole and in the world of deputies and jail cells. The night guards came running. They could do nothing except hold her down as she writhed and wriggled on the cot in the cell so she didn’t fall and hurt herself.

  In the darkness, Paige came at last to a small room with a tiny door. She compressed herself and squeezed into the room. A small boy huddled in a corner, with tears in his eyes and terror on his face. Paige rushed to him, to comfort him. He snarled at her, and tried to move away from her. She slowed her approach, giving him time to understand her benign intentions.

  It seemed to Paige to take hours of gentle murmuring and slow approach to connect with the tear-stained boy. The guards were grateful that, after several minutes of contorted movement, Paige had calmed and seemed to be sleeping quietly. They were ready to leave her to her slumbers, when she cried out gibberish in a great voice, and began writhing again. Again they held her down.

  Paige brought the boy up through the spiraling darkness, struggling against the current all the way. When she at last reached the light at the top of the black hole, a terrible witch confronted her. The hag stood with arms akimbo athwart the exit from the black hole. She raised her left arm to cast something at them. Paige raised her right hand, and alongside her, the boy, now nearly full grown, raised his right hand as well. The witch flinched, screamed, and shriveled away. Paige brought the boy forth.

  The guards relaxed their grip on Paige as she quieted again. Her breathing remained rasping and heavy, but she did not twist and turn on the soaked sheets. After several minutes, they decided she would be okay if they left her. In the harsh cell light, her face looked older and the grooves in it deeper. The same light turned her hair white.

  On his way back to his guard post, one of the guards looked in through the cell door peephole at Noah Count. Noah appeared to be sleeping normally, although the sheets he lay on twisted around his legs and torso. Several times that night the guard checked on Paige, and occasionally, on Noah.

  Noah woke feeling newly born. He felt free in a way he never had. He asked the day guard to send DiConti to him. When DiConti arrived, Noah told him about Vanna’s hiring him to make mischief at San Danson Manor and among the llamas. He offered to testify at her trial, and to plead guilty at his own. DiConti taped their conversation, and advised Noah to consult a lawyer before making a final decision.

  Paige woke exhausted. She sniffed
herself, got up, and went to the sheriff’s office. She asked a woman deputy on duty for permission to take a shower. The woman readily agreed, and promised to find Paige clean clothes. When she had cleaned up, Paige went back on the street to the Missing Man Mission and volunteered her services in exchange for a cot to sleep on and a corner to call her own. Her hair never recovered its brown, and the lines in her face only deepened. Paige was content, at last. She shuttered the peephole in God’s muumuu and took up her life.

  Arrested Development

  DiConti took the tape he had made of Noah’s account to Barry Cooda, the Assistant District Attorney. Barry listened carefully, and then asked DiConti discreetly to investigate Vanna’s background and Noah’s background.

  DiConti began with Bertha Van Nation. She had just put in her retirement papers, and was glad to spill all she knew to DiConti. She told him about Vanna hiring Haakon, about her frequent references to getting rid of La Señora and the llamas, and about the llama painting Vanna had hidden in her work closet. She thought the signature might be “Noah Count,” and promised to check for DiConti. Later that day she telephoned him and assured him the picture was from Noah’s brush.

  DiConti presented his further evidence to Barry, who decided he had enough evidence to warrant an