Black Bird

by Greg Enslen

  She shook her head. “I guess I should have been paying more attention to the bills,” she said, waiving on hand at a wicker basket of papers on the kitchen counter. He knew that that was where she kept her bills that needed to be paid, and he could see even from his seat on the living room couch that the basket was overflowing with what looked like at least three months worth of paperwork. Damn, if he had known she was forgetting to pay her bills again, he would’ve checked in with Abe sooner.

  He watched as her face worked; it looked like she was having trouble remembering exactly what Abe had said last night. “He said that the power company had contacted him, saying they were going to shut off the power. And the house people called him and said I was three months behind on the payments and they were going to foreclose. I swear, Davy, I didn’t mean to forget the bills.” She was quiet for a moment, looking down at the nearly empty glass of vodka on the table in front of her, looking at it like it was her only friend in the world. “It’s just that sometimes, I forget to take care of things like that.”

  After a few seconds, she continued. “Abe said I would have to sell the house, and I don’t want to do that, Davy!” she said, reaching over to the chair across from the couch and taking his hand in hers, almost pleading with him. She looked around lovingly at the dingy, dusty furnishings, not seeing them for what they were but probably seeing them as they used to be, years ago. One golden wedge of light came in through the shade pulled over the window and fought its way through the dusty, dirty air to paint a yellow triangle on the floor at her feet. “I just can’t bear to think about selling.” She was very close to tears. “It’s all I have left to remember your parents by. You know, they let me live here with them for a while before...”

  David looked up sharply. They never, NEVER talked about his father, or his parents. She hated Sheriff William Beaumont - he had taken her beloved sister away. He’d gotten her pregnant and then abandoned her to bleed to death in the delivery room. She must have been more drunk than she had first appeared to him, or she was really scared. As he watched, she fought the tears and the tears won, coming in long, hitching gasps.

  “They were so happy, there for a while,” she said through the tears. “They had everything, and then it all fell apart. He was pretty good to her, your father was, and they had me over for dinner the night they moved in here. They were so happy - that was a year or so before they found out they would be having you. And your mother, she was so strong, but she just wasn’t strong enough. And losing your father, that just took too much out of her...”

  He moved over and held her lightly, something he had not done in years. They rarely even hugged, and he could not remember the last time he had held her to him for longer than a second. Now, her head was tucked into the space by his shoulder and she cried, long and hard, her chest hitching and his shirt growing more and more damp beneath her head and her hands.

  It was a few quiet minutes that David would never forget.

  He stayed that way until the tears slowed and then he pulled away easily, straightening her up and looking into her moist eyes. “Auntie, don’t worry about any of this. I’ll go talk to Abe in the morning and between him and me, we’ll get this whole mess fixed, okay?” This time, when he tried to smile at her to reassure her and to make her feel better, the smile came quickly to his lips.

  She smiled back at him, a good, genuine smile that made his heart skip a beat or two. For a second, she looked like the mother figure he had never had but had dreamt about having. “Thanks, David. You’re a good boy.” She held his face between her hands for a moment and then slowly lay back onto the couch. In a second or two, she was asleep.

  He got up and covered her with a dusty, flowery afghan that he had gotten her for Christmas several years before. He looked at her for a moment or two and saw the steady rise and fall of her chest, and then he let himself out, taking with him two large paper bags full of bottles from her kitchen and pantry. Some of the bottles were empty, some with the wax seal still unbroken.

  He got into his car after putting the bottles in the back seat, and with one long glance back at the house, he drove away.

  Jack Terrington got almost all of the way to Brunswick, Georgia before he came to his senses and decided to turn around.

  He had been driving off and on Sunday, thinking about Liberty and his memories of that hated little town. He’d gotten a late start this morning, and had gone through Jacksonville around lunchtime, turning north on the I-95. Turning north and heading toward Liberty had felt like the right thing to do, but now he wondered. Thoughts of anger and hatred remembered from last night alternated with memories of exultation and happiness, happiness at the idea of visiting his past and putting his ghosts to rest. Ghosts that haunted him even when he was asleep, and sometimes the dreams kept him awake at night. All he had to do was go to Liberty and kill and not get caught, and then he could forget all about that place.

  But why was he going back at all? He’d asked himself that same question ever since he had crossed the border from Florida into Georgia, following the coastal Interstate north. Why was he going? Beaumont was long dead, long in his grave, and the memories and recollections that seemed to haunt Jack were probably never going to go away, even after he killed in Liberty and returned to Los Angeles. Nothing and no one in Liberty could ever change what happened on that rainy Interstate so many years ago, and even if Jack could’ve somehow changed it, he wouldn’t have. Beaumont had been good, but Jack had beaten him fair and square and now Beaumont was rotting away somewhere in the ground.

  So why go back? What could he possibly hope to prove by returning?

  Because it was the sight of his only defeat and Jack knew it. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but Beaumont HAD beaten him. It had been only through dumb luck and a series of coincidences that Jack had gotten away. He’d fallen on his face in the mud, and survived because of it. Jack had been bested, and now, even after all these years, he realized that even though Beaumont was dead and buried, Beaumont was somehow STILL chasing him, had been chasing Jack for years, a ghostly figure from Jack’s past pursuing him across the country, whispering into his ear and driving Jack onwards.

  But he didn’t need to go back to put his ghosts to rest. He only needed to recognize them and then put them out his mind.

  Suddenly, Jack decided to forget the whole nonsensical notion of going back to Liberty.

  He was going to go back to Los Angeles.

  Jack signaled at the next exit coming up and left the roadway, taking the turn into a small seaside town about ten miles south of Brunswick. Fayesville looked like any other typical little roadside town, with lots of fast-food places and hotels grouped expectantly along the access road paralleling the highway. Sprouting around these buildings were a lot of tall, gaudy signs advertising other hotels and restaurants that evidently couldn’t afford the expensive real estate near the freeway.

  He found a Burger King and parked the van, heading inside to grab a quick bite. Maybe chicken, or some of those chicken nugget things, with some barbecue sauce. He was suddenly in the mood for chicken, and nothing went better on chicken than Burger King’s packaged Bar-B-Que sauce, even if some of the stores charged 10 cents a package for the stuff. How did they ever expect to keep customers loyal when they charged for condiments? What was next, 5 cents for a straw to drink your soda?

  After he ate, he’d take I-16 west, towards Atlanta. From there he could head west, back to Los Angeles. No more worrying about the past, no more thinking about things that could never be changed, never be erased.

  As Jack headed inside, the sky darkened with a passing of a flock of birds high above. There were many of them, a ragtag flock of different species. They flew over the restaurant and settled in a field behind it. He watched them for a long moment, wondering if it was normal for different kinds of birds to fly together, but he had no idea.

  Heading inside, Jack ordered and sat down. The meal was not memorable, but the myriad thoughts
that raced through his mind as he ate were. It still picked at him, the idea of returning to Liberty, but it seemed the only smart thing to do would be to leave it all alone, leave Beaumont and that stupid little town in the past, and try to forget all about it.

  He finished the chicken sandwich and fries and headed back up to the counter to order a chocolate milkshake for the road, already thinking about how nice Los Angeles was this time of year, and how much he had enjoyed living there. Tourist season was over and fall was coming. Maybe he could get a little place in Manhattan Beach and...

  That was when he saw Sheriff Beaumont.

  Beaumont looked older and maybe a touch heavier, but there he was, standing right there. So close Jack could reach out and touch him. The face was longer, probably from years of hard living, and wrinkled with age, but other than that, Beaumont looked exactly like Jack remembered.

  “Can I help you?” a voice came from behind him, but Jack didn’t hear it. He was far too busy staring at the old man before him. Evidently ex-Sheriff William T. Beaumont now worked here at this particular Burger King, because the man was decked out in the same ridiculous brown and orange uniform as the other employees. He had walked past Jack carrying a broom and a dustpan towards the bathrooms. Beaumont was wearing a nametag in the same place where he had worn his sheriff’s star back in 1978. That same star was now in Jack’s pocket - Jack had put it there this morning. The star was a little worn and faded around the edges, but for Jack it had held a mysterious power, like a magical talisman. One hand went to his jacket pocket and rubbed it slowly.

  “Sir, can I help you?” the voice called again, a little more insistent this time. He turned angrily and saw a nice looking teenage girl behind the counter, looking at him expectantly, a hand hovering over the register keypad.

  Jack scowled and turned away and saw the man was gone. He pushed away from the counter, bumping into someone behind him, and moved around the counters to the eating area of the restaurant, towards the bathrooms.

  He saw him.

  Actually, he only saw the man’s back, receding quickly towards the rear of the restaurant.

  A scraggly-looking family made up of a hugely fat mother and three children walked in front of Jack as he stood there looking for Beaumont. Each, even the littlest one, carried their own brown trays loaded down with food and soda, and Jack noticed out of the corner of his eye that even the littlest one was looking a little pudgy around the waist. The mother was like a huge moving blob, her huge purse swinging with each step, beating out an odd slapping rhythm as it banged against one meaty thigh.

  Jack, furious at having his retirement plans upset by this ghost, batted the last of the fat children aside and upset the kids’ tray, sending food and dessert and soda splattering to the tiled floor. Jack stepped around the fallen kid and made his way towards the back of the store, intent on catching Beaumont before he could disappear again.

  The kid that Jack had knocked over started bawling at the top of his lungs, even though the kid appeared to be at least ten or eleven. The mother, seeing her kid on the floor, bawling his eyes out, dropped her tray of food on the nearest plastic table and jostled over to her boy, scooping him up and cradling him to her ample bosom.

  “Hey you! Hey! What do you think you’re doing, knocking over my boy! Come back here and apologize, and you’d better buy him some more food! Hey, you! Come back here!” Her voice was thin and shrill and it sounded like it was having a lot of trouble getting all of the way out of her.

  Jack stopped and turned and stared right at her and the fat lady shut up so fast that he actually heard her teeth pop together with a little snap.

  Jack turned and walked up quickly behind the old man, who had just reached the bathrooms and was slowly setting down his broom and dustpan. Jack grasped the old man by one arm and spun him roughly around.

  The man standing in front of Jack looked nothing like Beaumont.

  The hair, the face, the build were all wrong. This man was far too heavy, even accounting for the difference in years; his chin was flat and unimpressive, his eyes were empty, vacant. The man simply stared back at Jack’s face for a long second or two, and then the dull eyes slowly drifted down to Jack’s hand, roughly clenched around the old man’s arm.

  Jack was speechless.

  It wasn’t often that it happened, but here he was, standing here with nothing to say. Had Jack’s mind been playing tricks on him? Were his eyes starting to go bad?

  Jack let go of the man’s arm and finally found his voice. “Sorry. Thought you were somebody else.”

  The old man nodded slowly in Jack’s general direction, mumbling something under his breath, and then he turned around, moving towards the bathrooms again. One of his hands drifted mindlessly up and rubbed the place where Jack had grabbed him.

  Jack shook his head, went back to his plastic table, and sat down. Somewhere along the way, he’d taken out Beaumont’s star, and Jack regarded it as if he were seeing it for the first time. His hand uncurled from around the metal star, and the rounded points of the star had still managed to draw a little blood, beading on the faded gold finish. The scar was there, too, looking whiter than normal today, and again Jack’s mind wandered back to that day on his bike. The images flashed through his mind until he shook his head to make them stop.

  The fat woman’s children were staring at him, especially the one who looked lonely without a tray of food in front of him, but the mom soon snapped at the kids and told them not to look at the Bad Man.

  "Don’t look at the Bad Man, kids."

  He could hear her talking about him, calling him a Bad Man, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one little bit. He didn’t like being fooled by an old man, and he didn’t like being spoken about like he was some kind of a monster. He was no monster - if anyone was the monster, it was Free Willy and her litter of fat kids. He wasn’t a monster, he was just...

  Suddenly, the Urge welled up inside of him and Jack really wanted to kill somebody, ANYBODY, right now. The Urge bloomed inside of him, and he knew that if it kept growing as fast as it was growing now, it would soon be very difficult to control. He had to get out of here, to get to his van and do some serious thinking before he got back out on the road. And he had to get away from people, and fast.

  Why was he so obsessed with Beaumont? What could explain why he had seen the image of Beaumont on the pallid, shrunken face of some poor hapless Jew, someone who looked like Beaumont only from a distance, and then only slightly? Had Jack’s mind deserted him, happy to wander off on its own and ponder whatever it wanted to, leaving him high and dry and looking like a fool in front of a dozen witnesses in a fast-food restaurant? Would he ever get control of his mind, of his fears, again?

  Maybe the only answer was to return to Liberty, to go back and visit his and Beaumont’s old stomping grounds, to convince himself that if Jack and Beaumont were to somehow face off again, Jack would win. As crazy as it sounded, the idea appealed to him a little more after this latest craziness. A lot more, actually.

  Maybe the only way to get on with his life was to face the demons that haunted him, and defeat them. And then forget them.

  Jack took his tray to the wastebaskets and scraped everything off into it. He wasn’t in the mood for a milkshake anymore. He popped his shades on and stepped out into the milky September sunlight, streaming down in thin ribbons from a very cloudy gray sky.

  When he got back to the freeway, Jack went north.

  Tropical Storm Mandy slammed into the eastern Bahamas with enough gusto to make the NBC evening news on Sunday night as the last story before the first commercial break. Though technically not a hurricane yet - its sustained winds were still in the low 60’s - the storm was a big one, the cloud pattern and central mass already much larger than a normal tropical storm, and therefore the Trackers in the underground National Hurricane Center had estimated that, with such a large, decentralized circular mass, the storm would be weaker than most.

  They wer
e wrong.

  The storm, at double the width of most tropical storms, loomed huge on the computer screen was Randy Kovacs staring at, puzzling out the details. It would almost certainly be upgraded to a hurricane in the next few hours.

  The Center was full of activity tonight, much busier than the night before or any other night so far in the month of September - they were staffing up for a potentially serious situation. Kovacs wondered if this was the storm they had waited all season for. Coming this late in the Hurricane Season, a real giant would be a rarity, but it had happened before. The 1965 Season had been relatively quiet until a huge storm, Hurricane Betsey, had coalesced off the Cayman Islands and slammed into Mobile, Alabama, killing almost a hundred people. The storm was an estimated category 4 - they could only guess at the storm’s severity because the 1-5 Category system wasn’t instituted until 1972, but they could go back and look at the effects of the storm and any wind and rain measurements that had been taken and make an educated guess. A category 5 storm was the worst, one that came along only once in a decade. The last category 4 storm had been Hurricane Hugo back in 1989. But the 1965 Season had been a slow one, just like this one, and then the biggest storm of the year had blown in, killing people with little or no warning.

  Randy was worried, wondering if the season had been saving itself up for a really bad storm.

  Other Trackers sat at their terminals, crunching data, their fingers flying around their keyboards as they accessed data from historic data banks and up-to-date observations, running innumerable computer models and computer estimations about the storm and its track. They processed and processed, trying to estimate the future path of the storm by examining wind patterns and currents, water temperatures and salinity, and a half-dozen other variables. Estimating the storm track was one of the most difficult things they did here at the Center, and many people counted on their information. The National Weather Service, the Weather Channel, CNN, and other new sources all relied on them to get their estimates out as fast as possible, and Federal and state agencies were waiting for the information so that they could issue warnings, close beaches, and inform local and state police authorities in case any evacuations were necessary.