Damascus Road

by Charlie Cole

  I walked back to the chapel and was greeted by the throng and a cascade of well-wishes.

  “Sorry about your dad, James,” more than one person said to me. I nodded but couldn’t help trying to look past them, over them. Then I saw her. She stood by his coffin, looking in. Then she looked back in my direction and her face was unmoved. No smile, No frown.

  She walked to the side exit and opened the door, slipping out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “There’s someone that I really need to catch. Sorry.”

  I disengaged myself from the group and walked quickly down the aisle. I did not look at him. Could not look at him. I hit the side exit and pushed the door open. A short flight of stairs down and out through a security door. The exit opened onto a courtyard formed by hedges I saw her then, at the edge of the lamplight. I called out after her, hoping desperately that she would stop.

  “Mom?”

  She stopped, but did not turn. She kept her back to me, keeping me at bay. I feared that if I approached, she would vanish and I would lose her into the night again, lost in the wide world without a hope to find her.

  “Jimmy?” she said, her head tilted slightly.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  She was my mother. Her name was Elizabeth. My father called her Liz. But I had always called her Mom and that’s what she would always be to me.

  “I didn’t think you would come,” I said.

  “Neither did I,” she said, more easily now.

  She turned to face me, and I could see her gray eyes in the lamplight. She was not afraid of me. She had tried to evade the conversation, but now that it was there, since we were face to face, there was no sense in hiding or postponing it any longer.

  “I’m sorry that you lost him,” she said.

  “You too,” I said. It sounded awkward, but she nodded.

  “He was lost to me a long time ago, Jimmy.”

  “Mom…you were lost to me,” I said. “I lost you. I haven’t known where you’ve been for years.”

  I took a step forward, tentative. Fearful. I dreaded that if I moved too fast, the illusion would explode, and I would lose her again, like an apparition. But I had to finish the thought.

  “You left us.”

  She did not deny it or run or laugh or cry. She opened her purse and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. She put the filter of the smoke to her lips and cupped her hands, thumbing the flint and lighting it. The gesture was so out of character to her appearance. She was a vision of maternal beauty, but lit up like someone who lived with rough trade. In retrospect, I guessed that she had.

  She drew deeply on the cigarette, watching me, then blew a plume of smoke before walking toward me.

  “You do remember your father, don’t you?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “And you ran at the first chance you got, didn’t you?” she continued.

  I saw where she was going with this.

  “Mom…”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “We were kids,” I said.

  “Ellis had commanded young men for almost two decades before we had you boys. You were in good hands. Besides, Jimmy, you know you were always his favorite.”

  “He hated me,” I said.

  “He never hated you,” she said as if this was obvious and hardly something she even needed to bother to convince me of.

  “Thomas joined the service to be closer to Dad,” I said, swallowing hard at that last word. “They served together. I ran away from home.”

  “Ellis wished you would have joined the Army,” she nodded. “He wanted that to be you. He wanted you under his command, Jimmy. Not Thomas.”

  I had never heard any of this before.

  “What happened with him?” I asked.

  “Ellis? Oh Ellis was always that way,” she said, drawing deeply on her smoke. “His way or the highway.”

  “No, no, not Ellis,” I said. “Thomas.”

  She considered that for a moment, took her time to compose herself before she answered. She flicked her cigarette ash on the sidewalk and stepped on it with her strappy heels.

  “Thomas chased after your father’s love,” she said. “And it killed him. Come on, Jimmy. You know the story. The war. Does it really matter how? A bomb…a bullet…in the end, my son came home to me under the United States flag. And I could never look your father in the face. Not until today.”

  I saw it then. That look in her eye. Something I’d never seen in her before: Malice. I’d seen it in myself, seen it in the mirror, but never realized where I got it from. Never realized that it was in my blood until that day.

  “Your father was a coward, Jimmy.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  She was staring me down, lighting another, holding the smoldering cigarette between her fingers as she watched me.

  “I’m five and a half feet tall, and your father outweighed me by a hundred pounds, but he was afraid to face me. Do you know that?” she asked. “He was afraid.”

  “He led men into combat. He was decorated for bravery…” I said. I knew my father’s record by heart.

  “He was afraid to face me after he got Thomas killed,” she said.

  I opened my mouth to defend him, but was at a loss. My mouth went dry; I had nothing to say. My mother walked up to me.

  “You know, Jimmy,” she said. “You have a wife, too.”

  “Mom, don’t…”

  She was completely unafraid of me. Suddenly, I was six years old again in my momma’s kitchen being scolded.

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “Stop.” I turned away.

  “Jimmy, have you talked to her?”

  “Stop it.”

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  “So am I,” I growled. “Stop it now. You don’t know me, and you sure as hell don’t know her.”

  “I know you, James Marlowe,” she said. “And you are your father’s son.”

  I could not meet her eyes. I rubbed my hand over the nape of my neck. My collar was too tight. I pulled at the tie and loosened it, pulled it off and undid the top button. I blew out a harsh sigh.

  “What…what…” I huffed, trying to find the words. “Mom, what do you want from me?

  She took my face in her hands. I felt my beard stubble against the soft flesh of her hands.

  “Jimmy, go find Grace,” she said. “Go find your wife and make things right with her.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes. My heart ached.

  “Go and make things right, before she’s standing over your grave, wishing you had been there for her.”

  I nodded, unable to find the words. She hugged me then, smelling of cigarette smoke and perfume.

  “I love you, son.”

  “Love you, mom.”

  She left me there then, gone as quickly as she’d appeared. I looked around and could not find her. I didn’t want to go back inside. I didn’t have any interest in being present for any of this. I didn’t care about the mourners inside. No one would miss me or blame me if I didn’t come back.

  “I am my father’s son,” I said out loud. “…fuck.”

  I walked around the building, gathered my thoughts, wiped my tears. I breathed in the night air and finally, when I could go back in without losing it, I returned. I slipped inside and found a seat.

  The evening passed without incident. The preaching was mild, without brimstone or recrimination. Platitudes about a life of service and a waiting reward. I wanted to object, but lacked the strength or the interest. I sat back and waited for it to be over. It did not take long.

  When the pallbearers came to remove the casket. I did not look over. I couldn’t. I stared straight ahead and breathed in and out until they moved down the aisle. I would not make it through the funeral if I started to get emotional. I thought of my mother and the things that she said and tried to dispute them. I argued with myself, with her in my imagination of how the conversation could have gone, trying to find fault in her lo
gic and losing the battle over and over again.

  “Are you ready, James?”

  I looked up and saw Blake Harrison. He looked concerned, and I smiled reflexively. Behind him was Wallace. He was a squat man to begin with, but the suit and tie made him look like a bodybuilder struck with dwarfism. I nodded, numb to the conversations around me of the mourners.

  We rode back to the garage in silence. I saw Blake look at me a couple times from my peripheral vision. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t bring himself to break the silence. When we arrived at the garage, I got out only remembering after to thank him.

  “Blake, thank you again for all this.”

  “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “I know… but thank you anyway.”

  “The commitment service is tomorrow at 9am,” he said. “Should I pick you up?”

  “No, no thank you,” I said. “I’m going to drive myself.”

  He had given me the name of the cemetery and it was the largest in the area. I couldn’t miss it. I felt compelled to finish the thought though.

  “Blake, I’m leaving town.”

  “Oh.”

  “The funeral made me realize something,” I said. “I need to mend my own fences while I still have time.”

  Blake’s face brightened at this.

  “Well, that’s probably for the best then,” he said. “You have to promise to stay in touch.”

  “Blake, you’ve been a friend to me when I didn’t deserve one. I was starving and homeless and you fed me and gave me a place to stay. ‘Thank you’ just doesn’t cut it.”

  “It’s what the good Lord would want,” he said.

  I kept my face blank until I could muster a grin. I couldn’t tell him that the same God that he praised and loved and emulated had thrown me to the wind and snatched my father from me before I had a chance to know him. I didn’t know how to tell him that I was battling with God over this and that I saw no peace on the horizon, had no peace in my heart. And yet…

  “I think you’re right,” I said.

  “See you tomorrow, James,” he said.

  “See you.”

  I walked away from the car, turning back to wave. Blake’s car pulled away and I took my time walking to the garage. I hoped that my mom would find me again and we would be able to talk. I had not seen her in so long and then to have her there… She was a military wife. That perfect blend of woman and steel. I missed her.

  The key was under the mat, just as Wallace had promised. He stayed behind to talk with people at the funeral home. I suspected Blake was returning there to do the same. It was not my scene and I gladly left them to it.

  I opened the door and the garage was silent. I put the key back under the mat and began to wonder what was in the fridge.

  I never saw the attack coming. I only felt the body slam into my back, knocking me out the door and spilling me onto the lawn behind the garage. I rolled, trying to get distance, but my attacker was on me already. I felt a fist collide with my shoulder, glance off and cuff me on the ear. I raised my guard and avoided a flurry of blows. I threw a kick at his midsection and hit nothing but air.

  That’s when I saw him. He was my height, but dressed in grey clothes, dark enough to camouflage him, but not black against the night. His face was covered with a balaclava ski mask, but I saw his eyes and they were smiling at me.

  “James, brother of Christ,” he said, taunting me.

  “Nathan…” I breathed.

  I came at him then. I lashed out with a roundhouse kick that he dodged, but followed with a straight punch. He parried and backpedaled. I sent a sidekick to his gut and he brushed it aside. I’d had enough.

  I ran for him, trying to get close. I hooked a punch that connected high on his head, then swung my elbow but hit nothing but air. My knee came up, and I heard the wind rush from him. I was ready to pound him with my fists like a barbarian, when he came up under my chin with his head. My jaw clicked shut audibly, and he punched me in the face, knocking me to the ground.

  He danced back, light on his feet like a boxer.

  “You seem so angry, James,” he said. “I know you could finish me. If you were able.”

  It was the play on words. If I were able. Abel. Nathan… Cain, the name from the driver manifest for the truck… Cain. The biblical brother who murdered his sibling because his heavenly Father appreciated Abel’s sacrifice more than Cain’s.

  And then I saw it. I saw it all. I got to my feet slowly.

  “Thomas?” I said. My hands dropped to my sides, and stared at him.

  For a moment he didn’t move. Then he pulled the balaclava hood from his head and I saw him. Thomas Marlowe. My brother.

  “I’m surprised you got that,” he conceded.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “What have you done?”

  “You never appreciated what you had, James,” he said. “Ever.”

  “You killed Chris Beck…”

  “In all fairness, I was trying to kill you,” he said.

  “You killed Dad.”

  “Did you think he was so innocent? So pure?” Thomas asked.

  “You killed him!”

  “Ellis Marlowe killed thousands of people, James,” he said. “I did the world a favor.”

  I screamed and clenched my fists. I rushed him, my face flushed with anger. I wanted to smash his face in, to crush him, silence him.

  I never got the chance.

  Thomas spun and caught me in the ribs with a vicious back kick. It knocked the wind out of me and took me off my feet. I fell hard, unable to breathe. I tried to draw a breath, but my lungs were unwilling. I cursed, hating myself for being so weak.

  “You were a bad son, James, and he loved you anyway…”

  He was whispering to me, his face close to my head. I lashed out with the back of my fist and connected with something, but his boot came up under my kidney and I screamed.

  “You were a bad husband, but I’m going to take care of that too.”

  “You…you…stay away from her…”

  “Don’t you think it’s time Grace met your long lost brother, James?”

  “No…don’t…”

  “You know, it’s too bad. You were never there for her,” he said.

  “I…I’ll kill you…”

  He leaned into me again, close to my ear.

  “Now we’re talking.”

  He fist connected with my face and everything went black.

  I was out for what seemed like an eternity, but I couldn’t be sure how long it actually was. I woke with my face in the grass, the soil moist and pressed against my face, blades of grass in my hair, my ear. I rolled onto my back and rubbed my eyes. I stared up at the sky and saw the stars, the clouds. I rolled onto my hands and knees and managed to get to my feet. Ignoring the pain, the shooting agony in my joints and my side, I quickly stood before my body's protests could stop me.

  Thomas was gone. I shook my head trying to clear it. I limped to the door and found it still open. I stepped inside. I hit the lights and found the kitchen mercifully empty. I locked the door behind me.

  “Wallace!” I called. “Hey, Wallace!”

  No answer.

  “Blake! Are you here?”

  Silence.

  I was still alone in the garage. I searched the place completely, leaving no closet unexplored, no door unopened. When I was finally satisfied that I was alone, I made my way up to bed. I kicked off my shoes and peeled off my suit, leaving it over the back of the chair. I collapsed in the bed and let out one long shuddering sigh before consciousness slipped from my grasp and I fell into the warm embrace of the dark.

  I did not wake when Wallace came home. I did not wake when the sun streamed through the bedroom window. I didn’t wake until I heard the sound of a semi-tractor trailer rig driving past the garage. I heard the purr of the engine, the shift of the gears, and the drive of the acceleration. The road was calling to me…

  I sat up on the edge of the bed and
rubbed the nape of my neck. My head hurt. My body ached. I had been beaten. I stood and walked to the bathroom. I left my clothes in a pile on the floor. I turned on the shower and let the water run hot. I stepped in and felt the piercing hot needles try to invade my skin. It burned my scalp and flooded over my razor burn. There was a remedy for that. I didn’t need to shave anytime soon. My skin screamed where I had been injured, but there was no serious injury there.

  Stepping out of the shower, I toweled off as I went and rummaged for clothes. I found a pair of jeans, not as worn as I was used to, but well on their way. My wallet went in the back, my knife in the front. I skinned my way into a black T-shirt. My boots were waiting, and I slipped them on. I pulled on my leather jacket. Looking in the mirror, I ran a hand through my hair and pushed it into something close to a passable fashion.

  Looking around the room, I gathered my clothes and jammed them into my bag. The closer I got to being able to leave, the more anxious I became. Somehow the whole idea of spending more time with Blake and Wallace was slowly driving me mad. It was unfair, I knew, and I could not point blame in their direction; but I wanted nothing more than the road. I wanted my car. I wanted the road and gas and distance and miles to go.

  I started down the stairs at a slow trudge, then with a quicker step, then pounding down the treads into the kitchen. Wallace was nowhere to be found, and that was just fine. I was a big boy and he was giving me space. We would never be the best of friends, even though we were on the same side. I walked toward the Hemicuda, still in the garage.

  The Cuda was waiting for me, polished and black and silently ready. She was begging for the road nearly as much as I was. Who was I to deny her?

  I dropped my bag in the trunk and opened the overhead door. I fired up the engine and she purred, low and long. I let her roll out of the garage and find the light of day. I could hardly keep myself contained long enough to close up the garage before I was back behind the wheel.

  I sat in the driver’s seat and touched the steering wheel with both hands.

  “It’s okay, baby,” I said. “We’re in this together.”

  The engine growled.

  “I’m going to take care of you.”

  The Cuda idled, ready to run, to go, to eat mile after mile. I couldn’t keep her waiting.