by Marie Delta
Where had O’Reilly gone? What was he doing? Where had he gone? Why would he leave me here after doing all this glass? All things that traveled through Duncan’s mind. After a while, he could not stand sticking around any longer. So, after making sure he had the keycard he took off into the night.
All the man did was walk. He walked around the city block repeatedly, and every time he passed the hotel, he looked up at his room wondering if O’Reilly was back. After circling the block about ten times he finally went back up to his room only to find it empty with his friend nowhere in sight. He found his phone on the bedside dresser and, seeing that he had no missed calls, dialed up O’Reilly. The phone went straight to voice mail.
Chapter 4
Duncan could not think of any good reason why O’Reilly’s phone would be off. The only reason was a bad one. He must be in jail. Duncan paced back and forth in his motel room. Then he began talking to his self.
“I gotta get him out. What is he even in for? Why is he locked up? Did he have something on him? Did he get in another fight? I can’t bail him out. How can I bail him out? I have no money. What am I going to do? I’m gonna come down soon. I’m gonna take that last line. He won’t miss it. He needs to sober up. Me, I’m fine. I don’t need drugs, I just want them.”
Duncan stopped pacing and found the little baggy his friend left behind and poured the rest out onto the phonebook. It was a pretty fat line, but he did not care. He was stressed out and he needed it. He needed to calm down...or up...whatever it would be considered. He snorted the last line and licked the bag clean. He was sure it would help, but he still had no idea what to do for his friend. It was not the first time he had been locked up. No, this happened often. So why was he so scared? He decided it must be the drugs. He knew for sure it had to be the drugs. He messed up the bed and remade it. Then he wiped down the shower and the sink. He even wiped the toilet bowl clean. After that, he sadly had nothing left to do.
He left the hotel again to take another walk. This time he walked two city blocks, round and round until his body told him it was time for him to rest. Then he walked back to his room.
In his room, he drank another beer and rolled another joint. He was tired physically, but his brain was wide-awake and told him to get up, and do more, and more. Unfortunately, there is not much to do as a homeless, jobless man. So he watched cartoons for the rest of the night and watched the sun come up.
As the sun rose, his high came down and he became paranoid. Again, he paced the room, but this time out of pure fear, not energy. He began seeing things out of the corner of his eyes. Tiny little creatures crawling...scuttling across the floor. They were running right at him. He compared them to bugs and named them Shadow bugs. They scuttled across the floor, the walls and the ceiling, all heading toward him at high speeds. He knew it was all in his head, but he could not convince his self fully and still found himself afraid of the Shadow bugs.
Soon the bugs began to take on faces. They had large faces something like a well-done jack o’ lantern. Their teeth were spaced out and their jaws open, readying for a large chomp, Duncan believed, of him.
After ten minutes of pacing in fear, Duncan hopped into the bed and under the covers. He hid his face trying to hide from the Shadow bugs, but as soon as his eyes were enclosed in the dark he became even more fearful of the things and had to peek to be sure, they were not covering the blankets under which he was laying.
“Leave me alone!” He cried weakly from his sanctuary. “Leave me alone. Please God make them leave me alone.” He whined and cried to God for a short while before he continued on, “Anyone. Anyone please help me. Just don’t let them get me, please!” He continued on that way for a while until he finally fell asleep.
Chapter 5
Duncan opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times before he sat up. Light peeked around the curtains letting him know it was daylight. He blinked a couple more times before he slid himself out of the bed. Once standing, Duncan decided to take a bath. A luxury he rarely got since he had O’Reilly over almost every time he got a room. He walked into the bathroom and started his bathwater, lathering up the bar of soap in hopes to make bubbles and enjoy a bubble bath.
Once the water was ready, sans bubbles, he took off his clothes and dropped in with the bathroom door still open. He did not expect O’Reilly to be coming back any time soon, but still had the hope poking and prodding at his brain.
He had been sitting in the tub motionless for ten minutes when he heard a noise in the room outside the door. It sounded, to him, like the groan of a mattress under a sitting body. The only problem was that he did not hear the door open and close. Curious, Duncan yelled out to his friend, “Reilly, is that you?” He waited a few moments, and after hearing nothing, he assumed it must have been housekeeping. “Hello! Whoever is out there, I don’t need anything today. Thank you.” He still got no reply.
He got out of the tub, slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible. He had no idea what waited for him on the other side of the bathroom door, but whatever, or whoever it was, was about to see stars if they threatened him. Creeping slowly towards the door, Duncan held his breath. He was afraid, thinking it may be a police officer or FBI agent, though he could not think of a single reason why they would be in his room.
He finally stepped out, and was beyond surprised to see his neighbor, the old man perched on the edge of his bed.
“Hello, Duncan.”
“Get out of here! What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
“I need to speak with you.”
“You can’t just show up in my room because you wanna chat. Get out! Go!”
“I am not going anywhere until we talk.”
“I’m naked!”
“Nothing I haven’t seen before, but if it bothers you, put on your clothes.”
“I shouldn’t have to. This is my room you’re sitting in old man.”
“In fact, I brought you something.” The old man reached between his legs for a plastic bag and dumped the contents out on the bed. “They should fit well.”
Duncan was not sure what to say. Here was this old man he had seen all of one time, sitting in his room and offering him new clothes.
“Try them on.”
Duncan shook his head and snatched up his jeans from the floor. He re-entered the bathroom, pulled them on, then stepped back out.
‘Look, old man, you can’t just barge into my room. I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
The old man smiled and with one hand, beckoned the young man over, and patted the bed with the other. “Come and sit. I am about to offer you the deal of a lifetime.”
“Is that what this is? I don’t sell drugs, okay. I’ve been to prison before. I didn’t like it and I don’t plan to go back.”
Again, the old man patted the bed. “Just come sit, relax, and listen to my proposition.”
Duncan looked from the man, to the door and back at the man again. Then he crossed the room and sat on the bedside table after putting the lamp on the floor.
The old man began, “First, I must tell you who I am.” Duncan raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “I am a man possessed. I am two beings in one.” For the first time, Duncan noticed the man’s eyes. They were pitch black. The old man smiled again, knowing immediately what caused the younger of the two to scoot back just a bit further in his seat.
“My name is Rodrigo. I was once a young man, living on the streets, just like you. I had dropped out of college after losing both of my parents to a house fire. I have no brothers or sisters, or any type of family at all. It was just me, all alone for almost a decade.
“I made it on the streets by stealing and selling the things I had stolen; sometimes I would even sell back to the original owner. I had more money than I could hold in my pockets. But I didn’t do the smart thing and rent out an apartment. Or a hotel room. I stayed right there on the street where I was comfortable.
“One day I had been sleeping on a benc
h in the park; the one right down the street. I loved to sleep there because the cops never patrolled at night and there were plenty of other homeless people out there with me. I cannot say they were my friends, but we looked out for one another. I woke up to a tap on the shoulder. I was ready to be asked to leave, thinking it to be the first officer to actually do his rounds, but it wasn’t. It was an old man, just like I am today.
“The old man was wobbly and looked weak, but we walked without a cane or a walker. He stood tall and had an energy that I only understand now. I sat up and let him sit beside me, and he began to talk. He talked about the wonders of the world and bad luck. He talked about God, the angels and heaven above. He also talked about death, and hell. He said that for some people, life is their hell. He pointed at people one by one and told me what their hell was. Then he really surprised me by saying it was his time to die, and he knew exactly where he was going.”
The man stopped there and smiled again at Duncan. The young man scooted even farther back on the bedside table. So much that he had to put his hand on the wall next to him to keep from falling. His mouth opened and closed, then he signaled for the old man to continue.
“Very well. The man said that he was tired and ready to go. I asked him why he was talking that way, and he said very simply that it was the truth. He went on to say that he had unfinished business. That he was looking for someone to pass his gift on to. He stopped me before I could say, ‘Why me?’ and said that he thought I would enjoy it. That is the same reason I am here speaking to you, today. I took that gift from him, years ago, and it changed my life. Now I want to change yours and leave this world smiling, the opposite of how I came in.”
“So...what’s the gift?”
“As I said before, I am two in one. I have a friend here with me who needs life. I, on the other hand, am close to death. For my friend to live on, I must pass him to another young being.”
“So why don’t you just do it? Pass it on I mean.”
“Nothing is so simple. I am sure you know this. The being must be accepting of him. They must call him into their body. They must let him take over.”
“And what does that do for me? You said it would change my life. I don’t get how this works.” Duncan was now on the opposite edge of his seat on the bedside table. He had leaned forward during Rodrigo’s story. The old man could see that he had him, but he could not tell how long it would take to convince him. And he had very little time.
“It will give you power.” He turned his body towards Duncan and looked him in the eye, “Great power.”
Chapter 6
Duncan stood and turned away from the black eyes that seemed as if they were trying to pierce his thoughts. The old man was making him uncomfortable, but he no longer wanted to kick him out of the room. Instead, he wanted to see this power. He wanted to know the power. He wanted it inside him, but was not willing to look or feel stupid for falling for some old man’s trick.
Rodrigo spoke again, “Before I show you anything, you must know that if I die, my friend dies with me. So every moment you waste...”
He did not need to finish. Duncan understood there was a chance of losing out on the deal offered to him. He was still, though, wary of the old man and his story.
Duncan had calmed down a bit at this point and popped open a beer. He rolled up a joint as the man watched him and sparked it up; thinking that if the man disliked the smell, he could leave.
“Okay...let me get this straight. You know what? No. First of all, who is this friend? What is he? He’s obviously a parasite by the way you tell it. Why would I want that in me?” He puffed on the joint and held it in, his words coming out as if they had been squeezed out of him.
“He is not a parasite. The relationship we share is 50/50. I share my life with him; he shares his power with me.”
“What is he?”
“He is nothing you’ve ever seen before. He is not a man, nor a woman. He is not some creature you can find on the Discovery Channel. He is simply him.”
“That doesn’t answer my question old...Rodrigo.”
“Demon.”
“A fucking what?”
“He is a demon. He is an evil entity.”
“So you’re asking me to accept a demon in my body?”
“He has to go somewhere.”
“Well, not in me.”
“You called us.”
“Bullshit!”
“You did. Do you think your prayers go unheard?” Duncan did not know how to answer. “You asked for anyone to help you. I and he, we are someone. And we are here to help.”
“Help or no help, I am not inviting a demon into my body. Do you get how stupid that sounds?”
“It does not seem stupid to me, Duncan.”
“And another thing. How the hell do you know my name?”
“I know because I know.”
“Whatever. I’m not doing it. You’re gonna have to find someone else.”
“Okay, but before I do that, define evil for me.”
“Do what? What do I look like? A fucking dictionary?”
“No, you do not. Which is why I ask. I fear that you may be under the wrong impression of what a demon really is.”
“Well explain it to me then.”
“You see a demon as an evil thing, which he is. But evil is a word created by man. It means only what you want it to. My friend is described as evil only because he is labeled as so by humans who believe that hell is hell and heaven is heaven. But what if they...you are wrong? What if evil is right and good is wrong? What if heaven were hell, and hell was heaven? Do you simply decide to believe these things that people who have never experienced such places decide to tell you?”
“No! I believe what I can see. And what I see now is an old man with creepy black eyes telling me to sacrifice myself to a demon.”
“Again, I will tell you, it is a 50/50 relationship. You will not be giving up your life, only allowing another to live it with you. Why do my eyes scare you?”
“I’m not afraid of you. You are creepy though.”
“My eyes scare you because you have never seen anything like them before. That is the one and only reason. And if you believe I am a bad person, just because I am different then I may be wrong about you. You may not be the one deserving of a gift such as this.”
“Just show me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just show me the power. I’m ready to see if you’re a phony or not.”
“Good. Good. Why don’t we go have a nice meal?”
Duncan perked up at the thought of free food. “It’s on you, right? I’m tapped out.”
“Don’t you worry. You will eat like a king today.” Rodrigo smiled knowingly and rose from the bed. “Please, wear the clothes I brought for you.”
Duncan smiled now, and picked up the clothing from the bed. The old man was right. He had picked out the right sized clothing, and the young man put them on in the bathroom before they both walked out into the sun.
Chapter 7
As they walked out into the parking lot, a taxi pulled up in their path and Rodrigo got in the backseat. He then scooted over behind the driver and patted the seat in the same way he had patted the bed in the room. Duncan got in and clasped his seatbelt wondering if he had just made a horrible mistake.
“So where are we going?” Duncan stared out of the window as he spoke. “Some fancy restaurant? I’m not into those. They don’t serve enough food.”
The old man chose not to ask whether the kid had ever been to a fancy restaurant. Instead, he asked, “Where would you like to go?”
“I dunno. IHOP? It’s my favorite. I just don’t get to go there often.”
“IHOP it is.”
The cab made a U-turn at the next light and traveled back in the direction they had come from. Duncan took it as a sign that the driver could hear their short conversation and decided to hold his questions until they were at the restaurant.
Once there, Rodrigo
ignored the hostess and walked himself back to a booth. Duncan watched him, eyes wide at first, and then he followed. Once both of them were seated, a waitress came by and set down two coffee mugs, then filled them with the hot drink.
As they sat, with no menus, Duncan wondered if the old man knew what he wanted. The young man knew exactly what he wanted and was grateful for the coffee. He had only sipped his coffee twice when the waitress came back with food. She slid the pot roast dinner in front of Duncan and French toast for Rodrigo. The men thanked the waitress and the elder of the two shooed her before she could ask if they needed anything else.
Duncan did not know if he should be amazed, or afraid. The fact that the old man had known exactly what he wanted made him feel as if the man was in his head, reading his thoughts. Not to mention the fact that the waitress had brought it out without getting word from either of them. Seeing the good smelling food sitting in front of him, Duncan shrugged and began to stuff his mouth.
Rodrigo watched the young man eat and smiled. He waited patiently for him to finish, then he spoke, “So, do you have anything to say? I trust your meal was good, you seemed pretty hungry.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t had much to eat in the past couple of days.”
“I’m surprised you ate at all, given the circumstances.”
Duncan chose to ignore the old man’s comment on the drugs and began with the questioning. “So, how long have you been...two in one, or whatever?”
“For about four decades.”
“And you can do whatever? Like how did the waitress know what we wanted?”