Jake rolled his eyes, but went for his wallet. He pulled out the only cash he had, a twenty-dollar bill. He crisped it, pinching the corners between his fingers for all to see.
“That’ll make a fine donation, sir,” said the homeless man. The woman giggled beside him, her mouth watering, the green bill reflected in her iris.
Jake exhaled and handed the twenty out for the man to collect. The bayou reverend held the bill up to his face and then quickly stashed it into his pants.
“Okay—” said the homeless man. “I’ve seen that fellow around here before. In fact, he was just here this morning, sleeping by this here oak. But this here oak’s our church and you got to pay your dues if you want to worship here.” He sat back down, tipped his visor as if he were going to drift back to sleep.
“Worship?” Jake positioned his hands on his hips.
“Sleep.” The homeless man yawned.
“Sleep?”
“Same thing as worship, ain’t it?”
“So—where’s he now?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
Jake fought the urge to throttle the man. He’d just paid him the last bit of cash he had on him. There wasn’t much left in his bank account. Ministers didn’t make much at St. Hubert’s, especially ones who were about to be canned. He spotted a large river rock by the bank and imagined how the man’s brains would look painted in the grass. A flash of Renfield in the Iraqi mud, torn asunder, surfaced and disappeared just as quickly. No. Instead, he clenched his fists and turned to walk away, feeling disgusted.
“Thanks—thanks for nothing,” Jake spat.
“Anytime, mister. Anytime.” The homeless man laughed in a hushed hysterical wheeze. Closing his eyes and rolling over in the grass, retreating back into his afternoon nap.
As Jake reached the Volvo a woman came running up the bank toward him. What now?
“Mister…look, sorry about Dan. He can be—” started the woman.
“An asshole?” Jake offered.
The woman laughed wryly. “Yeah, I guess so. Just the way he is, especially with strangers.”
Jake sighed. “I understand. Thanks for the apology.” He turned to open the Volvo door.
“Listen. I’ve seen your friend before, other than here this morning.”
Jake turned back, eyebrows raised. “And…?” he prodded.
“He’s kind of…a strange guy. Only seen him talk to a few of us; keeps to himself, mostly. I tried talking to him once before…it was weird.” The woman wriggled a pebble with her toe on the ground, fidgeting.
“Weird how?”
“I don’t know. He just seems…like an angry guy…but his eyes look…sad. One time he was in a hurry in a big way to get somewhere. Kept staring up at the sun as if he could tell the time just by looking at it or something. He looked pained, scared even.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. Maybe he was trying to score drugs.” The woman shrugged.
“Why do you say that?”
“He was shaking a lot. His skin looked really pale. I’ve seen it before, you know. On the streets lots of us get by checking out, you know. Gotta do what you gotta do.”
The news struck Jake hard. He’d never in a million years imagine Bobby Weeks, the tubby prankster from his youth, doped up on drugs. But then again, like the woman said, sometimes you gotta get by, no matter the cost.
“Do you know where he might have gone? After your friend threw him out of the tree church?” asked Jake not masking his sarcasm. Now more than ever, he wanted, needed, to find his friend.
“I think he hangs out by the overpass on Highway 96 and I-45. No one else panhandles there. Just him,” said the woman. “Most of us stay clear of him. I was surprised Dan threw him out. Dan’s kinda of a chicken shit like that.”
Jake thanked the woman, handed her a couple Camels, and then jumped into the Volvo. He pulled out of the auxiliary road and took off toward I-45. Turning south he stayed on the feeder road. At the beginning of the day, after reading Maggie’s letter, he hadn’t had much hope of finding Bobby. But he’d told himself he would try. If he was going to look Mags in the eye and tell her he couldn’t find him, he wanted to at least tell her he did everything he could to bring him—just like she asked. His heart raced while the car accelerated down the road flanking the interstate.
For the first time all day, he felt as if he would actually find him, find Bobby. Now, convincing Bobby to come with him to Jotham would be another matter entirely. For whatever reason, Bobby has taken some rather extreme measures in keeping everyone at a distance. He didn’t even announce himself at Ricky’s wake. He came in like a ghost and disappeared, back on the streets, apparently. Of course, this could be very easy. Maybe he’s like Mags, ready to be around friends and family again. Maybe like her, he wants to reach out, but just doesn’t know how. Yes…this could be very, very easy. He thought for a moment, his heart thumping in his ears. Or, this could be really, really awkward. Highway 96 was up ahead. He slowed, controlling his breathing.
“Oh Maggie, tu me manques,” he whispered, drudging up that decades past French lesson on love and friendship, and then pulled under the overpass.
CHAPTER 4
FOLIE Ȧ DEUX
Johnathan
Christmas had come and gone with such ferocity Johnathan wasn’t really sure the holidays happened at all. In a blur of memory, faces came into focus and disappeared among a haze of dazzling blinking red and green festive bulbs. Family, friends, White Elephant games, pajamas, egg nog, mistletoe, advent worship (on his parents insistence), candy canes, decorations, Naughty Santa, all of it, it all pooled together tasting of gingerbread and scotch. And despite his horrid drunken behavior, or maybe because of it, he was glad it was all over.
Johnathan glanced over at Karen who sat silently in the passenger seat. She hadn’t said a word to him all day, for weeks for that matter. Hell, not since New Year’s. Not since the terrible embarrassment in front of her parents on New Year’s Eve. Drunk, again; screaming about…impossible things, unimaginable things. It was a good thing, according to Karen, that Maggie had refused to come. Had she heard Johnathan raving about seeing Ricky…calling him his own personal ‘Marley’s Ghost’ or whatever that meant, she’d never forgive him or her or any of them. She’d run and hide and never come back. Karen was worried about her husband, but it wasn’t her concern that made her angry; it was his complete disregard that he needed help, professional help, VA help.
It was an old story. Never wanting to ask or admit that maybe, just maybe, it was all too much for him. He’d blow it off. Blow her off till things got so bad there wasn’t much choice. However, instead of berating him over and over, insisting, pleading to mute ears, Karen apparently decided to ignore him, hoping maybe to prod him into action with her silence. In the passenger seat she gazed without emotion into her iPhone, feigning interest, ignoring his sideways glances, mumbling whenever he said or asked anything.
Keeping his eyes on the road, Johnathan tried not to think too much of the past few months. Ever since that night out with Jake, things, the hallucinations, had gotten progressively worse. And now with Karen acting the way she was, he wanted nothing more than let the past be just that, the past. After New Year’s, he’d stopped drinking, as terrible and frightening as that sounded. It hurt, at first, sure. But gradually, he stopped. And he stopped seeing Ricky. The dead friend that only he could see was gone. His Marley banished along with those hellish, ghostly chains of intoxication. Poetic, right?
Though Johnathan was feeling better, physically and emotionally, there was still that touch of fear the buddy-corpse would return, taunting him, crying out for him to do something about Mags. About Mags? What could he do? What could any of them do? She was hiding, from everyone, including her own damn sister. But still that bastard persisted howling and moaning. Crying out about some damn house, to get Maggie out, to save her before it was too late—whatever that meant. And then t
he letter came. Two months sober and a letter from Maggie showed up in the mailbox. Karen called her, but got nothing; only her voicemail and nothing else. There was just the letter, asking—pleading really, for the gang, Suicide Squad, to return to Jotham. To get back together, to put the past in the past, to forgive.
Forgive? Do I even deserve such a thing? For what happened to Ricky…?
Johnathan spotted a Buc-ee’s rest stop sign. ‘Cleanest bathrooms in Texas’, it said. “Does anyone need to use the restroom?” he asked.
Silence.
“Tabitha?” Johnathan prodded.
“No thanks,” called Tabitha from the backseat. Her face was concealed behind her newest book, a giant mold-green hardback copy of Doctor Howard’s Wonderful World of Insects.
“Whatcha reading, booger?” asked Johnathan, peering at Tabitha through the rearview mirror.
“Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga,” Tabitha said matter-of-factly with perfect Greek pronunciation without looking up from her big green book.
“Hymeno-what?” Johnathan cocked an eye.
“Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga—it’s a parasitic wasp from Costa Rica. The female wasp lays its egg inside spiders,” Tabitha said excitingly. “After hatching, the larva wasp feeds on its host, while the spider goes about its business like nothing's wrong.” She grinned with a strange menacing look of exhilaration.
“How does it do that?” Johnathan professed interest, somewhat concerned with his daughter’s, stepdaughter’s, interest in such brutal creatures.
“Well, Doctor Howard says the wasp larva injects some kind of chemical into the spider, which causes the spider to build a web for it. Kind of like a zombie.” Tabitha smiled behind her book.
“That’s…messed up.” Johnathan mocked tremors, protruding his tongue and pretending to puke.
Tabitha giggled. “That’s not even the best part. After that the parasite then kills the spider with poison and then sucks it dry and builds a cocoon that hangs from the middle of the web the spider built for it.” She turned the page. “Do you want to hear about—?”
“No, sweetie, that’s okay.” Johnathan smiled. He glanced at Karen. “Unless you’re interested, hun?”
Karen mumbled something unpleasant, keeping her eyes on her iPhone.
They passed another Buc-ee’s sign.
“Are you sure you don’t need to stop?” Johnathan prodded, nodding toward the sign. “It’s Buc-ee’s, cleanest bathrooms.”
Nothing.
Silence.
Karen’s nails clicked on her touchscreen. She cleared her throat, but said nothing to him.
Great, Johnathan thought, deflated. He took the exit off Route 290, just outside of Giddings. They were only about thirty minutes away from Jotham, from Maggie’s, but he needed a break, wanted some time to collect himself before facing his childhood friend, a girl he’d had a crush on when Power Rangers had just come on the air. Yet, more importantly, facing not just an old friend—but the wife of his best friend, his dead friend. And he’d have to do it sober, as terrible and frightening as that sounded.
“Well, I need to stop,” Johnathan said to no one in particular. He looked at his wife, briefly. Anger swelled with the pain of silence. He was trying damn it, wasn’t that enough? Why is she so persistent I need to get help when I’ve been doing fine on my own? Huh? So I was a jerk throughout Thanksgiving…and Christmas…and New Year’s. So what! Can you blame me? I was hallucinating Ricky! Not some spiritualistic fart. I’m talking the real deal…
Was he just a hallucination? He was at the market; at the movies chewing with black teeth on the same stale popcorn from the concession stand. On the side of the road, hitching with his hideous deformed thumb. At all the damn sunny smiling family functions. I didn’t even know Ricky knew how to play the piano, but there he was, cutting the rug with his own version of “Silent Night.” Fingers with hardly any skin left on them, nearly all bone, chalky white. The flesh that remained was just—nasty, bloated purplish-blue with a hint of yellow-green. Nasty. Nasty. His uniform molded and tarnished with soot from the fire, from that fucking RPG that killed him…
And when he smiled, bugs crawled from his gapping maw. He smiled. He smiled. He fucking smiled at me. How could I not get loaded? The drink helped, didn’t it? No—no, I guess it didn’t. Because he’s gone now—he is gone, right? And I’m sober now…doesn’t that count? No need for wizards or visits to fifth floor psyche wards. No more need of blue and red pills. No more chalky taste, no more bitter sweets. No more hallucinations…down the rabbit hole. Wasn’t that something? Isn’t that enough?
The drive up Buc-ee’s was long. The large gas pumps held sway to the east, additional parking to the west. And on the north side, an enormous and equally famous cartoon beaver with the red baseball cap and buck-teeth swimming in a sea of yellow paint mounted to the face of the tan brown store. Johnathan looked at his gas gauge and decided not to fill up. Good excuse to hit up Buc-ee’s on their way out of town, after the weekend that is. He pulled into a spot. Karen glanced around and quickly dissolved back into whatever it was she was reading. He wasn’t sure if he should bother prodding Tabitha again to go inside with him. It would take the jaws-of-life to pry her away from her new bug book.
“Last chance?” Johnathan said with his hand on the door handle.
“No thanks, Dad,” Tabitha said, flipping a page. Her eyes shone bright on some new insect Doctor Howard offered.
‘Dad?’ Such a rarity! Johnathan thought with a smile, sliding out the door. He carefully found his footing. Taking his cane in hand, he hobbled toward the building. A woman, twenty-something in age, with a not-so-modest beauty about her smiled and flicked her hair as he came near the automatic entrance. Her flirtatious (was she flirting?) gaze drifted suddenly away, embarrassed. Johnathan looked down and realized he was wearing a pair of loose-fitting basketball shorts, exposing his prosthetic leg. Typical, he thought, walking past her in a huff.
Inside, the store was moderately busy. It was cold, yet most everyone was wearing shorts. Herds fomented toward the café and the section where the fudge was sold. There was some kind of special going on. Signs posted near the registers proclaimed Hill Country Bohemian Garlic was fifty percent off. Johnathan made his way toward the bathroom.
“Welcome to Buc-ee’s,” said a girl behind one of the front registers. She didn’t bother looking up from her cellphone.
Johnathan smiled automatically, continuing on his way. He noticed a few other eyes drift toward him, rolling down to his deformity. He did his best to pay no mind, but even a year later, the nerves were still raw. People are curious by nature, could he really blame them? Yes. Already a year and still every glance, every sideways look, every whisper felt as if the gazer was peering into his past, discovering his sin, his lapse in judgement, his epic botch, his Himalayan blunder—yet even those idioms failed to compare to what he did, or what he thought he did. He’d smile. Sometimes he’d even wink. But beneath the surface it felt as if someone had taken a stab at his heart. On the outside he wore that mask he told Jake about, the one they wear to keep family and friends thinking everything was happy-happy. He knew it all sounded so dramatic and cliché, but it was how he felt and he knew no other words to describe it.
He spotted the rack filled with Beaver Nuggets, delicious golden-brown, bagged cornstarch candy treats, kinda like Cap’n Crunch, and made a mental note to buy a bag before leaving.
The bathroom was just as the road sign advertised—the cleanest in Texas. The stalls looked empty except for one gentleman washing his hands at the sink. Johnathan limped toward the nearest toilet and then went inside the private little room. He carefully balanced on his only leg, resting his cane against the wall. He looked at it with some disdain. It had been a year now and still he needed the damn crutch. Would there ever be a day when he no longer did? He finished his business, flooding the bowl in an exotic exhalation. Something by Willie Nelson was playing over the speakers. He didn’t recognize the song.
Humming along, he went to wash his hands, unaware he was now completely alone in the restroom. The AC seemed to be pumping out a chill especially well. He could see his breath, faintly. Washing his hands in icy water he heard a low rumble, like the passing of traffic or a large rig. He looked into the mirror. His face looked haggard. Pale. Aged beyond his years.
“You look like hell, Johnny-Boy,” heckled a familiar raspy voice, a voice that could not, should not exist.
Johnathan whipped around. “Ricky…” He breathed in deep and sudden sadness. Looking into the face of his dead friend, his best friend, counting the folds of blueish rot, the swarm of bugs clawing for darker flaps of skin to nest, the state of his sanity came back into question. I’ve lost it, he thought. Drunk. Sober. It doesn’t matter. I’ve fucking lost it. It doesn’t matter…
“What? Nothing nice to say?” asked Ricky…or the dead thing that looked like Ricky.
Johnathan recoiled. The dead man’s hot breath struck him hard in the face, the stink of aged meat bathing in the sun, spoiled, beyond redemption. He held himself with one hand on the sink, still wet from washing his face, and with other he cupped his nose and mouth.
Ricky looked at him quizzically. He lifted his arm, the untarnished one, and sniffed his armpit loudly. He looked back at Johnathan and smiled with his bright milky eyes, “Being dead stinks, huh?” he joked.
Johnathan fought the tremors. His hands shook wildly. His eyes watered, not just from the putrid smell of decay, but from the realization of his own madness. The power of the hallucination was strong, lifelike—ergo, the schizophrenic disorder or dementia, or whatever you want to call his psychotic break, must be equally fervent. Or maybe it’s a tumor. Cancer. Maybe I’m not crazy. Maybe this is something else. Maybe TBI or what have you. I’ve heard of soldiers coming back and going completely schizo, complete one-eighties from who they were before. Maybe this is that…maybe…
Emerging (Subdue Book 2) Page 4