by T L Barrett
“What I need are some clothes and to live in a country where mobs with torches don’t show up and shoot kids,” Barry said.
“Man, Canada, is way too cold, dude. Seriously, if you wanted to go to this poetry thing, you should have told me. Where is it? Did you miss it?” Glen asked.
“Let me think. No, it’s in two days. Oh, forget about it. It’s all the way over in Albuquerque,” Barry’s shoulders dropped and he kicked at the dusty ground.
“Dude, we are in New Mexico as we speak!” Glen said.
“Really? I ran all the way from Colorado?”
“Yes, dude. My feet are killing me, trying to keep up, and the shit you’d eat man, I’m serious. It just about made me puke,” Glen said.
“It was bad this time, huh?” Barry asked.
“I’d get a rabies test, maybe, dude, oh and HIV wouldn’t hurt, also.”
“What’s that smell?”
“Donut grease and Vaseline. Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
* * * *
Barry and Glen raided a bunch of trucks outside of a honky tonk bar that night. They even lifted a fat wallet off of a drunk passed out in the back of his Bronco. Barry wore a baseball cap, jeans and a jean jacket. Glen took a fancy to the drunk’s ten gallon cowboy hat with rhinestones. He looked ridiculous, but Barry was not going to tell him that.
The hotel hosting the Southwestern Poetry Conference was actually well outside the city limits, which was a bonus. Barry found a nice little cave for Glen to squat in while Barry attended the festivities.
“Are you sure about this, man, I really don’t need to go to this. It’s not like I’m a poet or anything,” Barry said.
“Dude, you write poetry, so you’re a poet. I don’t know what your problem is. If I had a passion like that, I’d embrace it. Go, I’ll be fine. This place is beautiful. I could just zen out here, you know?” Glen said.
That night, Glen and Barry slept under the stars and talked about outer space and wondered if somewhere on a distant planet, there were two other monsters looking up and wondering if other monsters were looking up and wondering the same thing.
“Jesus, Barry, imagine how ugly those fuckers have to be though,” Glen said.
“Get some sleep, Glen,” Barry said. Glen tucked his hat over the top of his face and snored. Barry would have woken him up, but he figured Glen deserved the sleep for chasing after him the past couple of weeks. The snores would also probably keep any predators away, as well. He fell asleep eventually and dreamt of the little bird that called to him with sensuous taunting, but kept speeding away from him at incredible speeds.
* * * *
That morning, Barry slipped out and hitched a ride to the hotel. He was excited to see some of his favorite living poets were there. He cleaned himself up at a rest stop and decided the name E. G. Rathburne would be a sufficiently inconspicuous name for a poetry convention. He stuffed himself on crackers and cheese and rushed to the first reading by W. C. McIntosh. The Scottish poet quipped about something in an almost unintelligible dialect for a few minutes. The crowd laughed encouragingly every time he paused.
Barry turned and saw a pretty middle-aged woman with a pronounced widow-peak and dark hair listening attentively. She had the whole librarian look to her. Barry knew no other profession that said sexy like librarian. He hoped at some point he could get the woman to look down at him over her glasses.
“Excuse me, do you understand what he’s saying?” the woman asked, as if she had heard his wish. Her brown eyes focused on his and Barry’s heart leapt. This was the one, he thought, he knew, in a sudden burst of clarity. Somewhere in his head he picked up a station that continually played Boston’s More Than a Feeling.
The woman had watched the man come into the large convention hall, his hat pulled down over his face. He wore blue jeans and a jean jacket and sported a rough unshaven look. His eyes were pained and soulful, yet kind. He had an intelligent and open face that somehow looked familiar, as if the face had called out to her in dreams asking her to be brave and stand up for what was right. She thought of her father in a jean jacket just like that, before he got sick with cancer, and the way that he had used to put on Roger Miller records, lift her up and dance around with her. She had waited for the right opportunity to talk to him. When she looked into his eyes, and saw that kind of shocked soul’s recognition which she had waited to see in a man’s face her entire life, her heart leapt.
“I don’t know but I think I’d like to have what he’s having,” Barry answered.
The woman let out a fabulous cackle. She had always tried to hide that cackle since she was in the first grade and laughed like that freely. Her classmates during recess had tied her to a fence post, gathered loose sticks about her feet and tried setting it on fire. Little did she know, she had inherited that cackle from her great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, a witch of some renown. The woman had healed the sick, mended the mad, advised the nobility into peace, and matched those destined for love. Of course, these acts got her burnt at the stake.
People—even W. C. McIntosh—looked up and blinked in consternation. Barry giggled, when the woman put her hand to her mouth and turned apple red.
“I’m Brenda Woodmansee,” the lady said and offered her hand, palm down as if she were a lady in a storybook.
“Enchanted!” he said with a wry smile and took her hand. “I’m Barry.” She smiled at him, and then his heart started beating in his chest.
Oh, my God! I told her my real name. Barry meant to tell her that his name was E. G. Rathburne, but ‘Barry’ just came flying out. Unknown to either Barry or Brenda, this was another side effect of her distant ancestry.
“Barry,” she said.
Suddenly Barry didn’t give two shakes if he gave away his identity to her. He just loved to hear her say his name. He hoped he could get her to say it many, many more times.
“Ahem”, a fat woman said beside them. They both rolled their eyes at each other and faced forward. After a few moments, Barry realized he was still holding her hand. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of it. She didn’t seem to mind.
Then her thumb slowly caressed the outside of his index finger.
Barry sat there, his heart beating, and distantly heard the poet at the podium say:
“I wanted to take this opportunity to read for you a poem by the tragically deceased poet, Damien Goldrick, too soon, alas, taken from us.” The poet went on to discuss the merits of Goldrick’s poetry, how it was years ahead of his time, blah, blah, blah. Of course, he mentioned how he had to take credit for rediscovering this great lost literary figure.
Barry leaned close to Brenda’s ear: “I knew this Goldrick guy in college.” Brenda glanced at him from the side, raised an eyebrow, and smiled. Oh, yes! She keeps smiling at me! Barry thought wildly. “That has to be a good sign, right?”
“She’s holding your hand, you moron!” Glen’s voice answered in his head. Barry blinked. He didn’t really think it was a good idea that Barry had his friend’s voice in his head even when the stinky brute wasn’t present.
“…and this all of course happened before it was revealed by the press in the past few weeks that young master Goldrick had been lover to the folk activist, Barry Trudeau.”
Barry froze. His heart pounded in his ears. His body went numb. He was sure that Brenda had slipped her hand away from his. He looked down, and found to his amazement that her hand still lay in hers. However, when he looked up he saw her staring. Her mouth had fallen agape. Her face paled.
Barry let go of her hand and stood. He nodded to people that sat in his way, and made his way to the aisle. Once there, Barry used all his reserve to keep from dashing for the back doors.
An eternity later, he was through the doors and panting. He wondered if he could make it across the lobby and into one of the stalls in the men’s room before he wolfed out completely.
“Barry?” Brenda called from the doors. The sound of her voice
stilled him. For a second he turned, his eyes flashing spectral brilliance and then turned to the main doors and walked through.
“Barry, wait, please!” Brenda called from the doors and crossed the already blazing parking lot to him. Barry took deep breaths and stayed facing the opposite way, hoping that his human form remained.
“You don’t want to miss the poetry. You should go back in,” Barry said.
“I didn’t come for the poetry, exactly, Barry,” Brenda said.
“You’re a reporter! Jesus, I should have known,” Barry said.
“No, I’m a music teacher, actually.”
“Really? I play music,” Barry said. “You didn’t come to the poetry conference for the poetry? You don’t like poetry?”
“No, I mean, yes, I love poetry. Actually I’m kind of closet poet myself.”
“Hey, me, too,” Barry said. He looked at Brenda and his heart dropped. She was even more beautiful to him in the harsh sunlight than in the conference hall.
“I guess we have a lot in common,” she said.
“You’re a monster hunter, aren’t you?” he asked.
“What? Do I look like a monster hunter?” Brenda said incredulously.
“You’d be surprised at what monster hunters look like,” Barry said.
“Barry, when someone told me about this conference, I had this strange feeling. I thought, ‘Brenda, if you go, you just might meet someone interesting, finally, someone that you might actually connect with.’ I had that feeling again this morning. Then, I saw you walk in…”
“I wasn’t Damien Goldrick’s lover. I’m not gay,” Barry said in haste.
“I could have told you that the moment I laid eyes on you,” she said.
“You could?”
“Yes, and for your information. I could also tell that you are not a monster,” she said.
“Well, actually, Brenda…”
“I don’t like that word at all. It’s not a nice word. Let’s both agree not to use it anymore, okay?” she said and offered her hand.
Barry grinned and shook her hand.
“How about we hit the bar early and see if we can’t figure out what W. C. McIntosh has been having?” she asked.
They went in and she talked mostly at first. She told him about her divorce a decade before, about her daughter, who was talking about dropping out of school now that she had met a man. “A man, too much like her father, if you ask me. Too much money and not enough soul,” she said. She told him about growing up in Utah. She told him about music and the band with which she used to play.
Then in a silence, Barry began to talk. It felt so good to tell someone about Glen and what had happened to them. He didn’t go into any details about the most gruesome events, but he didn’t leave anything out either. He figured she would get nervous, find an excuse, but she just sat and listened. She asked questions and she commiserated and laughed. In the end, when he told her about the girl he found in the bait shack and what happened after, he started to cry.
Brenda reached over, took his hand in hers, and kissed it.
* * * *
Glen got bored after meditating on the beauty of his surroundings after about seventeen minutes. He decided to go for a stroll. He climbed over rocks and swung over canyons. He walked down a wash and got his heart going when he found two rattlers at the bottom.
He was still thinking about those rattlers when he came over a bend in the land and looked up to see he was quite near a little adobe house. In back of the house sat a little old Native American woman with huge black sun glasses on.
Glen froze, licked his lips and studied the little wrinkled lady for signs of distress. After a few moments he considered that she was dead. He sincerely hoped the sight of him hadn’t done it to her.
“Hello,” the old woman said.
Glen did not respond.
“I know that your there, so the polite thing to do would be to greet me,” the old lady said. “I’m blind, but I’m not deaf.”
“Oh, sorry about that. My truck broke down and I got a little turned around—”
“You’ll excuse my French, but that sounds like bullshit to me, son. I know you didn’t come riding across the desert in no truck. I might be blind, but I still have a sense of smell. I know a skunk ape when I smell one,” she said.
“Ma’am, that term is offensive to me,” he said.
“Well, what would you like me to call you? You haven’t introduced yourself to me, have you?” she asked.
“My name is Glen.”
“Well, hello, Glen. It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Dorothy, but you can call me Tia, if you want, all the boys around do. Why don’t you come on over here and get in the shade for a spell.”
Glen decided he would. He sat down.
“So where is home, Glen? You are a long way from it.”
“How did you know that?”
“The spirits told me,” she said.
“Really?” he asked.
“No, you talk funny, silly,” she said and cackled and slapped her knee.
“I’m from Vermont,” he said.
“What state is that in?” she asked.
“Vermont is a state,” Glen said.
“How many people live there?”
“I don’t know. Do I look like an almanac?” he asked.
She turned and gave him a look.
“Oh, sorry. I think there’s a little over a half a million people there.”
“That’s not a state! Okay, well, why don’t you tell me about home.”
“Well, it’s beautiful there, except the winters are too long. I usually don’t mind too much, because my cave is kind of cozy and I sleep through most of it.”
“So you’ve left the cave. You have been born out of the womb of the mother. Why, you’re just a little baby. So tell me what happened since you’ve been born, baby,” the old woman said. Glen gave her a suspicious look, but then began to unleash his word hoard upon her.
“So, you faced your father, that’s good. All babies need to do that,” she said wisely after Glen told about confronting his father with Barry.
“The baby becomes a man!” she cackled when Glen tried to allude to what happened with the girls and the cult.
“You had to face your responsibilities,” she nodded when Glen told her about what had happened in Saint Louis. “I have to tell you. I sense that you have a couple of huge responsibilities coming up the road. You will have to find peace in yourself to know what the right thing to do is.”
“How do you know that?” Glen asked.
“The spirits told me,” Tia cackled.
“Bullshit,” Glen said.
“Fuck you, stinky!” she said.
“Well, how am I supposed to do that, you know, find peace?” Glen asked.
“You have to find your spirit guide. He or she will show you the path.”
“How do I do that?”
“You need to journey back into the mother and ask her for help in showing the animal to you.”
“Well, what’s your spirit guide?” Glen asked.
“Would you believe it was a skunk ape?” Tia asked.
“No,” Glen said.
“Good for you. You’re learning, son. It ain’t all about you. That’s a start. Now you get off that stink maker and you get going on your journey!” Tia shouted.
“Right now. I have to go right now?”
“Yes, now, I’m going in to watch my programs, I can’t sit out here when the sun gets high!”
“Do you want me to help you inside?” he asked.
“Hell, no. Do you know how long it takes to get the smell of Skunk Ape out of a place?” Tia snarled.
“Fine, I get the picture. You don’t have to be rude, though,” Glen grunted and sauntered back across to the rise of land.
“Oh, Glen. Good luck, and just remember—I love you, honey!” she called.
Glen waved, and then remembering she was blind, dropped his hand.
“U
h, I love you, too,” he said and walked quickly over the rise of land with his head down. “Crazy old bitch,” he muttered.
* * * *
As Glen came down into another gully in a rock face, he heard a whining sound. He jogged forward and peered into some shadows. There, he saw a small coyote struggling with one of its hind legs in a trap.
“Wow, they don’t grow them big like they do back home,” was his first thought. As the creature turned its pained eyes toward him, Glen’s heart was filled with pity for the creature.
“Wait a minute! You must be my spirit guide!” Glen said. “So what do you have to tell me?” he asked. The creature flailed and yapped in pain.
“Oh, shit. You need help. This must be some kind of test. All right, I’ll help you out, all right, little bugger? You just hold still…” Glen approached the coyote slowly and reached to help the animal out of its predicament.
The coyote snarled and twisted. Its teeth sank into Glen’s wrist.
“Ow! Motherfucker! Cut that shit out,” Glen roared. He jumped back. “Fine, you want to bite the hand that feeds you or whatever, then have to it. I didn’t need your all-inspiring wisdom anyway! You are a sucky spirit guide! In fact, I’m going to go back to the cave and find another one! See how that serves you!” He gripped his wrist and walked a ways away. The echoes of the trapped coyote’s whines followed him.
Finally, he went back, and suffered four rather gruesome bites before he was able to pry the monster loose. As soon as it was freed, the coyote limped away. He didn’t so much as turn back to give Glen a significant look of wisdom.
“Figures with my luck I’d get an asshole spirit guide,” Glen grumbled and went back to the cave.
* * * *
“What happened to you?” Barry asked when he came into the cave and saw Glen poking at the bites on his arm.
“I found my spirit guide, I think,” Glen said. “This place sucks. Can we get going, now?”
“You aren’t even going to ask me how the conference was?” Barry asked.