by Lawton Paul
“And by ‘society’ you mean living in a 40’ container and growing shrooms?”
“Exactly. You know, I was fully healed two days after I got shot. But I just love Bo’s cooking so much I had to milk it.”
Pretty soon Carl, Johnny and Greg walk in and sit down. Carl puts his hand on top of Angela’s and she gives him a hug and he smiles like a proud father. Bo brings all of them a plate of fried fish and some tea.
“Gang’s all here, huh?” says Greg sitting down.
“I thought it would be good to get everyone together, especially since Greg and Angie have to take a drive later,” says Bo, sitting down at the head of the big table.
“One bit of business though…” Angela says. “Are you guys okay with what me and Greg are gonna do today? It’s a tough thing, but I think it has to be done.”
Everyone nods quietly. Carl’s hands turn into fists, and Bo pats him on the shoulder. “Let it go,” she says. “For your sake. Let it go.”
“So if we are all in agreement, then one last thing: I just want to say thank you for saving me,” Angela says. “You guys were there for me in the end.”
“You saved us,” Johnny says. “Me, from the clutches of a corrupt judicial system; the old river rat from one too many double fried egg and hash brown breakfasts at the crab shack; the wardrobe-challenged Jesus and the eighty year-old dog from the rifle-wielding former sheriff; Bo, from going bankrupt.”
“The power did that,” said Angie. “All except the ‘going bankrupt’ part,” she says, smiling at Bo.
“She saved me, too,” says Greg. Everyone looked at him.
“Dr. Death weighs in,” says Johnny. “Uh, saved from what?”
Greg squirms a little, fiddles with his keys. “Um, loneliness,” he says, grinning. Angela smiles and takes a bite of grits. And then it gets a little weird, all quiet except for the sound of Dog slobbering on a doggy treat.
“One thing I don’t get,” says Johnny, breaking the silence. “The pendant saved Angie, even when she didn’t have enough blood. It saved Carl. It’s keeping Dave healthy. Even saved Dog. All of that. So, big mystery here: Why did Mrs. Kaufman, while holding that thing in her hand, die in a bathtub?”
“Maybe it can’t save you from oxygen deprivation,” Greg says.
“Nope. Ain’t buying it. It’ll fix gunshot wounds, massive blood loss, lymphoma, the common cold. So why couldn’t it save you from drowning?” says Dave.
“It’s easy,” says Angela. “You science types can’t see it.” She takes a sip of coffee. “She lost the will to live.”
“She lost her boy, Walt,” says Johnny.
“And she was tired,” says Angela. “It was difficult for her to carry it all those years. She had to move. To leave a child she’d grown to love.”
“Why didn’t Walt just tell us, or tell you,” Carl says to Angela.
“Yeah, that’d be a nice little dinner convo,” says Dave. “Oh, darling, by the way, I’m actually a really frakkin’ old German dude and the hermit lady next door is a nurse who saved me in World War II and she’s probably a hundred something years old. Oh, and one last thing, that funky piece of metal she wears around her neck is keeping everyone in town nice and healthy. Can you pass the peas?”
“He was going to tell me, but the sheriff got to him first,” Angela says.
……
A guard wheels in an old inmate and parks him on the other side of the plate glass from Angela in booth number four, Visitor’s Center, Raiford Correctional Facility. The prisoner is bent over and bone thin. At first she thinks they’ve brought the wrong man, but then he lifts his head and she looks into his eyes and knows there is no mistake. This sick man is Andy Jackson.
She pics up the phone, for a split second feeling pity for the man that killed her husband and Marlina Kaufman, and nearly killed her.
“I started getting some relief about ten minutes ago,” he says. “I knew you were here. For the first time in a month I felt like I wanted to eat some shrimp and home fries at the Crab Shack.” He took out a blood-stained handkerchief and started coughing. “What took you so long?”
“Once a month was the deal. And quite honestly I don’t give a shit about you,” says Angela.
“Yeah, you do. You’re a good person.”
“What’s that make you?”
“The only thing standing between your happy little plastic existence and you lying dead at the bottom of the channel.”
“Next time I come you don’t get to speak.”
The sheriff moves close to the glass, breathing hard. “Yeah, you think you know the score. But you ain’t got my protection now. Bad people out there. The old lady had to run more than once. They’ll try and take it. Keep it close. Don’t use it,” he says, sweaty face and wild eyes.
“I learned a new trick,” she says, leaning towards him. This will shut him up. “Put your hand up here on the glass over mine.” Andy Jackson puts his hand opposite hers, two inches of glass separating them. She smiles and says in a whisper, “I can suck the life out of people.”
He pulls his hand back like he’s been bitten by a dog, his mouth twisted up and fear in his eyes. He looks at her like she is a witch with some evil power and suddenly she is sorry she said it. Not because she cares about him, but because the way he looked at her. He is broken in ways her power can’t repair.
“You want the juice? Stick your hand up here,” she says. He slowly comes back, never taking his eyes off her, even though there are prison guards everywhere. He puts his hand up to hers again and she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. It’s easier now. She wills it out, this thing beyond her comprehension. She calls it a pulse. And she pushes it out, right through the glass, right into Andy Jackson. He falls back onto the concrete floor, then scrambles up before the closest guard is on him.
He gets himself situated again and his eyes are better than before. Everything is better. His movements are fluid when a moment before they were labored. He has a grin on his face and then she wishes she never came.
“Please don’t use it,” he says.
“Oh, so I get to come here and save your dumb ass but I don’t get to help someone who might actually contribute to society.”
“If you use it too much they’ll come for it. And I don’t wanna die just yet.” He looks at her and for the first time since she’d been there, she could see a little of the old sheriff. “They tried before. If you lay low and don’t go crazy they won’t find you in Chickasaw.”
“You’re full of shit. See you in a month if you ain’t dead,” says Angela heading to the exit.
On the way home it’s raining and dark, Angela curled up in a ball in the front seat watching droplets of water angling down the window. She is quiet so Greg turns on the radio. Billy Joel singing, “…She’s gotta way about her…” and he leaves it there for a moment but it gets heavy so he switches channels and stops at Quiet Riot screaming “…girls, rock your boys, we’ll get wild, wild, wild…” Greg starts doing a little head bob, taps his finger on the steering wheel, pretending he’s enjoying the music and not just worrying about Angela. Finally Angela turns it off.
“He told me not to use it,” she says.
“I hate to agree with him. But he’s right,” says Greg, turning the windshield wipers up a notch as the rain gets heavier. “We’ll just bury that thing close by so you and Dave will be okay, but not so close that you, uh, you know.”
“Stop aging?”
“Yeah. Listen, you need to start living your life again. Get a job. Work at the library downtown, or be a teacher, or go to school and get a doctorate in something. Art history? Ooh, I know, start a blog!”
“You sound like Bo.”
“Bo’s right. Put that damn piece of metal away and move on.” He smiles at her.
“Keep your eyes on the highway,” she says.
They roll along in silence for a few minutes until Greg can’t stand it anymore.
“Hold my hand,” he says. �
��See, I’m looking at the road.”
“That’s a big step. Perhaps we should wait,” she says, happy to be talking about something else.
“I would never besmirch your honor, my lady. Though I do fear the jealous wrath of Dog.”
“Good point. I’ve seen his wrath firsthand.”
“I’m jealous of Dog.” He let’s out a breath of air and his shoulders slump.
“Jealous of Dog. Why?”
“He put his life on the line for you. All I did was find the damn pendant in the ambulance.”
“You saved me,” she says, takes his hand and watches as his sour look slowly turns into a grin. She waits for him to take his eyes off the road again, to look at her. A moment later he gives her a look. A happy, contented, little-boy look. And she remembers what Mrs. Kaufman told Johnny about men and dogs: “…pat him on the head, show him you love him.” And she can’t help but smile, too.
Greg turns back to the road and his smile disappears. He’s doing about 70mph and there are brake lights ahead coming up fast. He whips into the passing lane and hits the brakes and nearly has to bail out into the median. The car comes to a stop and Greg’s got both hands on the wheel and Angie has a death grip on the dashboard. Other cars behind them come up quick, some of them skidding to a stop.
Once the traffic starts to move again Angela sees an ambulance ahead and a highway patrol cop waving people past. One lane’s been blocked off. There’s a car off the road in the woods and a red van in the ditch. They pass by the accident, the cop waving an orange light stick. There’s a body on the ground with a cover over it and a big paramedic is working on a woman still sitting in the van. She’s got blood on her face and she’s hysterical. Angie rolls the window down. The woman’s screaming, reaching out into the darkness ahead. Then they pass a small shoe laying on its side next to piece of a bumper, broken glass everywhere. And then two more paramedics hunched over a little kid, a cop looking on, hands on his hips.
“Let me out,” says Angela.
“No,” says Greg. “You can’t save everyone. Let it go.”
“Please,” says Angela, looking back at the paramedics. It’s a little boy.
The traffic starts moving and it’s too late to just jump out of the car. “Please, turn around,” says Angela.
“Nope. Someone’s got to protect you,” he says, the traffic getting back up to speed.
“I’ve heard that excuse before to do terrible things.”
“Live your life, Angela. You can’t save everyone.”
“You’re right, I can’t save everyone, but I can save that boy,” she says, pressing the metal pendant close to her chest. “Greg.”
“Don’t you use that damn thing on me,” he yells.
“Don’t make me,” she yells back.
“Well I just felt it! Shit!” He puts on his left blinker, pulls off the road and does a u-turn in the median. He floors it and the tires spin, and a few moments later they are back at the scene.
“Angela, I can’t lose you again,” says Greg.
“You won’t. Thank you for everything. You are a good friend,” she says, kisses him on the cheek and steps out into the rain.
Her breathing is fast and adrenaline kicks in, mixes with the energy field, the screaming mother, the red flashing lights, the panic held just in check by the young paramedic. She takes it all in, swirling inside of her, so much energy.
The big highway patrol cop holds out his hand. “Back in your car, lady,” he barks. But he has no power, not really.
“It’s okay. I can pass,” Angela says, walking by like he isn’t there, her hand pressed to her chest.
She kneels down next to the boy and the young paramedic starts to protest. But Angela speaks first: “It’s okay.”
The small boy is wet and bloody. One shoe missing. This isn’t who she thought she would be. She was never good with blood. The boy’s arm angles off in an unnatural way. Blood all over his face, a deep cut in his scalp. She puts her hand on his cold, wet chest.
She can feel the mother, pulling hard, her whole body reaching out. The boy is nearly gone, just a spark, but they are all together now in the same place and the mother starts to calm down.
“Come back to me,” Angela says to the boy. She doesn’t have to think, it just flows out, into the child. Much more than the sheriff. Energy from the mother, the two paramedics, the cop, gawkers passing by—all of it flows through Angela and into the little body under her hand.
His eyes open and she lets go. Now cold and drained, she takes a few steps back, rain in her eyes. The boy still staring at her. She waves goodbye and the paramedics take over, blocking her view. The boy starts to cry.
Greg comes, his warm arms around her, takes her back to the car. The boy is safe. Nothing else matters.
*****
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--Lawton Paul
Table of Contents
Contents
title
Marlina
Angela
Escape
Goodbye
Johnny Boy
Jesus, Part 1
Delecroix
Jesus, Part 2
Caribbean Spice
Do Not Cross
Wheels Turning
Gentleman Caller
'71 Ford
The Assistant
The Council of Elrond
Spy Jesus
No Dave
Devil Dog
Bastard Sheriff
White Lady
Saved
End