Just Fire

by Dawn Mattox

  My gaze met hers and then slipped down the rabbit hole, passing through a portal of time to revisit my once beautiful flower-child mother, lying cold and lifeless amid a tangle of delicate blue morning glories. My throat constricted as though the words “Mamaaa . . . nooooo!” were still trapped in time within my esophagus. I swallowed the memory.

  “Who in your family has committed suicide?” I asked.

  Genifer leaned forward, putting a hand on the desk and cocking her head as though analyzing me and not the other way around. She counted with her fingers. “My grandmother, my mother, her sister Evelyn, and some farmer cousin I never met.”

  One of the first questions on the intake form asked how the client arrived at PES and if they came voluntarily. “Your grandmother committed suicide?” I asked. “Didn’t your grandmother bring you in today?”

  Genifer slow-rolled her brown eyes beneath her eyelash extensions. “Like . . . duh. You know: grandmothers? Didn’t you have more than one grandmother?” The gum she continued to masticate between perfect teeth was liberally seasoned with sarcasm.

  “No. I didn’t.” The answer rolled off my tongue. “I never knew my grandparents.”

  Blair nudged me harder than necessary with her foot from beneath the desk and bludgeoned me with a look from where she sat, silently admonishing me not to make references to my personal experiences. Blair’s nasal voice twanged in the back of my head as she reminded me to stick to the questions on the forms and fill in the blanks.

  “Your grandmother said that when you were leaving church this morning, you told the youth pastor that you didn’t want to live. Is that correct?”

  “Not really,” she said, snapping her gum. “I told him I wanted to get naked, lay in a hot bubble bath, and slit my wrists.”

  I took a deep breath and allowed myself the luxury of a slow blink. I longed to tell Genifer that she was precious in the eyes of God but could not do so with my watchdog present. “What happened today that made you want to commit suicide?” I asked.

  Genifer didn’t have to think. “It’s a family tradition,” she said. “It’s how my family deals with our problems.”

  The thought intruded—Who is my family?—beyond the mystery man who was my father and a mother who had either reincarnated as a wildflower or remained lost in space. All gone.

  Another hour of Q & A’s revealed that Genifer had broken up with her paint-huffing boyfriend and now had the screaming hots for her youth pastor. I filled in all the blanks like a good intake worker and included a requisite safety plan that would allow her to return home, where her grandmother and sisters would watch over her for the next forty-eight hours.

  There was a lot of lawn between the door to PES and the parking lot. I watched until Genifer and her family were about halfway across before jumping up to follow them—past Blair, past the security cameras, and past curious coworkers.

  “Genifer? Genifer!” I hurried to catch up and then took her aside from the family. “Genifer, you said you went to church this morning. Work ethics say that it is okay for me to talk to you about faith since you brought it up.” I puffed. “I just want you to know that you are precious to God. There’s only one person like you in the whole world, and that makes you very special.”

  I knew my limitations. Like rainwater on viable seed, I poured my heart out over the broken, fertile soil of Genifer’s shattered self-esteem. The hopeful fruit of my labor was self-actualization, helping her to recognize her value and worth, but ultimately my words would sprout and bear fruit or die of their own accord.

  Genifer’s grandmother smiled from the sidelines, but the girl-woman shook her head in disgust. “Yeah. Right. Whatever.” She shrugged, turned heel, and stalked away.

  Blair stood in the doorway scowling. “What was that about?”

  Confident that Blair could not have overheard me, I smiled sweetly and replied. “I told her to call and set up an appointment with her therapist.”

  Blair looked at me through a pair of slitted Brillo eyes. “Yeah. Right. Whatever.” Her words as authentic as the sly smile that slid across her face.

  I shouldered my way past Blair. Genifer doesn’t know how lucky she is to have a grandmother who loves her, I thought. Love of family was like the axis of a gyroscope—a science toy my dad once bought to teach me about navigational systems. The object resembled a spinning top with an independent axis. No matter how much the disc whirled and tilted, the shaft remained steadfast—like my dad, who enjoyed his freedom while providing stability.

  “Daddy,” I asked my father, whose life had transformed him from Golden Boy Quarterback to Swarthy Outlaw Biker, “where do you go all week? Where do you stay?” If he had told me that he lived on the back of his Harley, riding the wind on his black charger, I would have believed him.

  “Humph. Answer me this, baby girl: Where I do I live every weekend?” He looked down at me as he straddled his mount, preparing to go forth and slay dragons. Or so I thought.

  My gaze dropped to his dusty, worn motorcycle boot. I felt guilty for asking, for doubting. “Here,” I said.

  He dismounted to squat down next to me in the graveled driveway outside the cabin. Taking me by the shoulders and pulling my chin up until our eyes met in mutual embrace. “Where will I always be when you need me?”

  “Here,” my child-voice intoned with girlish shyness.

  “Right there,” said Lefty, tapping the hook on his left hand over my heart, “and don’t you ever forget it. That is where I live, every hour of every day.” And with a hug and a ruffle to my long blond tangles, he climbed back on his steed, waved to Starla standing on the porch, and rode off into Neverland that I would later come to know as Oakland.

  I figured there was nothing like a new restaurant and the offer to buy Dano lunch as an apology for having disappeared to Oakland without so much as a “goodbye,” or a "thank you" for helping me land the current job. I thought wrong.

  “You think you can buy me off with chicken wings?” Dano bristled as she waved her arm in a sweeping motion around the little restaurant.

  “I’ll throw in appetizers and a dessert,” I said, looking up from my chair like a repentant runaway stepchild.

  “Oh, well, in that case, we’re good. Let’s pick up where we left off.” She walked around the table and bent to give me an air kiss and a head hug.

  “I knew you would come crawling back and begging for my assistance.” Her laughter bubbled as she popped on the love lights. “I’m glad you’re back. I’ve missed you.”

  Dano took a seat, and we discussed the menu. After making our choices, she leaned across the table to ask, “Were you running to or running from?”

  “Always the intuitive counselor,” I observed, then paused to place our order, trying to make light of her question in spite of the discomfort it generated. “You know me too well. The answer is both. I lived in Oakland for a few months, but now I’m home—with a cat.

  Dano’s eyes widened in disbelief. “No, you don’t say! You hate cats.”

  “I can change,” I said defensively.

  Dano laughed and shook her head in amusement.

  “Okay. I still hate cats, probably more than ever. But I have one.”

  She laughed harder and louder until people turned to stare.

  The food arrived, and we proceeded to sample a tray of ten hot, crispy wings and five delectable sauces.

  “Travis dared me. He brought me the cat from hell to prove I couldn’t handle change. Like, you know—from dogs to cats.

  “Got it,” Dano said, wiping her hands and dabbing her eyes with a napkin. “What does Kissme think of the new cat?”

  My world and everything in it stood still.

  “Sunny? Hey! I’m talking to you.” Dano reached over and tapped my hand with her fork.

  “I’m sorry.” I blinked. “Sorry.” I swallowed. “What did you say?”

  A look of concern had replaced the cheery smile. “What happened to Kissme?”

  That
single question had more answers than I was prepared to give in the middle of a hot wings joint.

  “Can we schedule a session? A lot has happened. It would be nice to get back into counseling.”

  “Of course. You know I’ll make time for you. Anytime you need me, you just have to ask. Do want to talk right now?”

  I hated to impose on our reunion, and Dano could see my hesitance.

  “Kissme died.” The words wrenched my heart. “I came home.”

  Dano paused to consider my remark. “Did you ever think of Oakland as your new home?”

  “Not for a minute,” I said, surprised by my own admission. My forehead knotted as I processed my thoughts. “It was more like a trial run, leaving the mountains and the memories.”

  Dano’s winged eyebrows took flight over her doe brown eyes. “I can see the ‘run’ part,” she murmured, pushing her plate aside and placing a comforting hand on mine. She tipped her head in her typical analytical fashion. “You were in crisis, and you came home,” she said. “Travis couldn’t give you what you needed, so you came back. I get it.”

  At last! Someone understood. But I was clueless as to why her words would raise a fight-or-flight response in me.

  “I can see that you’re thinking about something right now,” Dano continued. “Just blurt it out, and we’ll sort it out later. Tell me.”

  “When I was in Oakland . . . there was this butterfly caught in Travis’s office window, trying to get out. Beating its wings against the glass. God knows how it got eight stories up in a federal building, but I had to climb up on a chair and then stand on top of a filing cabinet to reach it. I nearly killed myself catching it.” A little chuckle of embarrassment escaped. “Travis was in a meeting . . . the people in the office cracked jokes. I took it down through Security, and they laughed too.” I dropped my gaze and pretended to study the chicken.

  “Sometimes my own stupidity amazes me. I finally figured out what was so funny when I got outside, and there was no place to let it go.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I held it as high as I could.” I paused to put my elbows on the table and cradled my chin in the palm of my hands. “It was a beautiful moment, the butterfly stretching its wings. Then it flew—right in front of a truck. Got sucked into the grill of an STD Contractor Delivery truck.”

  Dano double flinched. “I’m sorry,” she said, but it was hard to tell if she was sorrier for the butterfly or the “satisfied customers” of STD’s.

  I was on a roll. “Then there was the time Kissme was hit by a guy riding his messenger bike. Sent him flying off the sidewalk into a trash can. He was yelling at me while my dog cried. He never even asked if she was okay.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You know, there was an ambulance, and someone called the police—for him, not Kissme—”

  “That’s not what I meant. Come on. I can tell there is something closer to home. What did Travis say when you shared these events with him?”

  I blew out some pent-up stress. “He’s . . .” I searched for the right word. “Considerate, but he doesn't always get it. One time he caught me watering this wildflower that was growing next to his dumpster.”

  “Did he laugh?”

  “No. But it was embarrassing anyhow.”

  “Sunny, you can’t always be at war with yourself. That’s a battle you can’t win. You need to either make peace with yourself or, if you’re conflicted, sort out your beliefs and feelings and stand your ground. Sometimes we need to defend our beliefs, and sometimes we have to fight for them.” Dano touched me on the arm. “But first, we have to know what we are fighting for. What is it you want now that your life is your own?”

  An easy question. “I never want to live in a city again. People in cities only have time for themselves. I want to live in my home. I want Chance, Quincy, Kissme.”

  Dano sighed. “Reality check. Chance is playing with Kissme somewhere in heaven. Quincy, however, is something real that you can continue to fight for.” She paused. “Other than wanting physical things beyond your reach, what kind of life do you envision?”

  The moment called for another chicken wing, and I took my time chewing on the possibilities. Wiped the barbecue sauce from my mouth and fingers and reached for a spicy one.

  “Sometimes I want danger and excitement . . . I don’t know . . .” I set the food back down and drummed my fingers. “What I really want is to make a difference. Except . . . I don’t want anyone to die this time.” I tried not to get all emo as I said it, but it wasn’t easy.

  Dano resonated waves of compassion. “You can have it all, girlfriend,” she said with words of genuine love. “The first step on every journey is figuring out where you want to go. And you just took your first step.”

  Urban Brown, my lanky, lovable fellow Psych coworker, stood at my cubical wearing a wicked grin under his dancing dreds.

  “Yo, Sunny. Come check this out. Wanna see a white man break-dance?”

  “Seriously, Urban, where’s Blair? Isn’t she my official watchdog?”

  Urban’s crocodile smile reached back to his big ears. “She’s a watchdog, alright. Does tricks for Dr. West . . . if you get my drift,” he said with his eyebrows boinking up and down in an R-rated gesture. “But Iryland’s filling in for her. I’m your big dog today. Come check this dude out.”

  Urban was a fun-loving student who worked part-time at PES to pay for his college and a bachelor’s degree in social work.

  We looked through the one-way glass at Iryland, whose name was self-explanatory: Irish red hair with colored party speckles across vanilla ice cream skin, and she was sweet to boot. Iryland was sitting in a chair talking to Rumpelstiltskin, by all appearances: a tall, wiry man who kept leaping out of his chair and dancing around the room in erratic gyrations, pausing now and again to reach over his head in an attempt to grasp something behind him. Iryland did not seem the least distracted or dismayed by his behavior as she continued to ask questions and take notes. After a few minutes, she stood and walked out to join Urban and me, leaving the client alone.

  “Urban, glad you’re here,” said Iryland. “Sunny, would you sit with our friend, Jess Pickett, while I make some phone calls to find a hospital that will take him?” She glanced at the desk monitor that was connected to a camera in the waiting room. “Urban, there’s someone in the waiting room.”

  Everyone left. I paused before entering the interview room to watch with a kind of morbid fascination, mesmerized by Mr. Pickett as he skipped about in the open spaces around the chairs, muttering to himself. He struggled as he attempted to pull some invisible thing off of his back—much like a wild horse, leaping and twisting.

  “Get it off! Get it off me!” His words came fast and shrill yet were weighted by exhaustion. He stopped. Breathing fast. Peered, seeming to look through me. “Can’t you see it?” he croaked in a gravelly voice.

  I looked. And I saw. When I looked with my spirit, scales seemed to drop from my eyes. A grotesque, putrefying greenish-black monstrosity was clinging to Jess Pickett’s back as he continued to buck and claw and as he tried to reach the beast that rode him relentlessly. But Jess’s demon wasn’t the only spirit in the room.

  The Spirit of Fear manifested from nowhere and slithered up my toes and shivered up my spine until the shiver turned to a shake and I let it fly.

  “Hello, Jess. I’m Sunny McLane.”

  He stopped his madcap dance to turn and fix a pair of dark, tormented eyes on mine. “Do something,” he hissed.

  “I am,” I said, no longer seeing but still believing in the otherworldly glimpse of the monster that had taken hold of this man. I was praying! Did the Bible-thing and prayed, “Lord, I order that demon out of Jess in Jesus name … and please get me the hell out of here.”

  “Methhhhh . . .” the words came, not so much oozing as releasing, like a dying man’s last gasp; they seemed to sigh from his twisted mouth.

  That was the beginning of my ability to
discern spirits. I saw that demon riding Jess like a jockey whipping a lathered horse down the homestretch to the finish line. I saw it with my spirit, recalling the Bible’s book of Ephesians: “We do not war against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the dark powers of this age.” I know what I saw but had to be careful who I told. They would probably think I was crazy.

  “You saw what? Have you been drinking?” Travis called me faithfully every evening, and it was almost always a pleasure.

  “No, I haven’t been drinking,” I said, setting my glass of wine on the end table. “I saw a spirit . . . a demon, riding on a man’s back. Not with my eyes . . . more like through my eyes. Haven’t you ever glimpsed something that sent shivers up your spine?” I asked, before catching myself as I recalled that Travis had fought in Iraq.

  Travis took a long pause and then chuckled. “Last night you told me Brillo is demon-possessed. Are you reading dystopian novels or watching another apocalyptic series?”

  I banged the phone against my head in frustration and then let out a double yelp as Brillo startled and bolted from under the sofa. The hellcat did a burnout as he shot from between my feet—snagging his claws in the throw rug, hissing, and spitting and rolling his way free before sliding across the polished wooden floor and poof down the hall.

  “What is it?” Travis asked anxiously.

  I shook my head. “Brillo. That cat really is possessed, but that’s not what I am talking about.”

  “You hate the cat.”

  I gave a monster mental eye roll. “I’m adapting.” I lied.

  “Really?” He sounded skeptical. “So what was different about the guy you saw at work from Brillo-the-Satanist?”

  I reached for the wine. “The guy at work had a demon riding on his back. The cat is full-blown possessed.” That didn’t come out right. “Forget it. It’s dumb.” Travis followed the Buddhist philosophy, and I doubted if he believed in demonic spirits. “Tell me about your day.”