I blinked, trying to focus. Speaking to me was a young teenage boy, maybe fourteen years old.
I held the stuffed toy up in front of me. “I’ve never seen this creature before in my life. It must have gotten on in New London while I was sleeping.” I smiled at the kid. “It’s a present for a girl I know. I could’t fit it into my travel bag. Have a seat.”
The two of us sat in silence as the bus flew north. I marveled at the amount of church steeples in the towns we passed. Patches of winter still soiled attempts of greenery eager to begin a new season. A row of cows lined up along a fence, stretching their necks through to the other side to pilfer a neighbor’s sprouts. Memories of Betsy sprinkled through my thoughts.
The kid fidgeted.
I felt a tap on my arm.
“Mister, I have a confession.” He wore braces on his teeth and slurped back saliva as he spoke.
“What do you mean? You sure you want to tell me?”
The boy poked his hands around in the sports carryall he had stashed under the seat in front of him. He pulled out a pink and lime green bag with white hearts all over it. Without looking at me, he carefully reached in and solemnly removed a stuffed panda bear toy. The black and white, furry cub was identical to mine. Even the small tag on its leg indicated the same brand.
“I didn’t know how to tell you, but I had to. Isn’t it just an amazing coincidence?”
Something, somewhere, had just confirmed to me that I was traveling on the right path.
“Yeah, very incredible. Very cool.” I grinned. “My name’s Deets.”
“I’m Hank. What do we do now?” He whispered as if some secret plan needed to be reviewed.
“Well, let’s see. How about you telling me why you’ve got a panda.”
“It’s a present for someone too. My favorite professor’s daughter was hurt real bad, and I wanted to give her something. She’s beautiful.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
He looked heartbroken. “No, but I still, y’know...”
“Is she okay?”
“No, she’s in a rehabilitation clinic near my school. The doctors say she has to learn how to talk and move her arms all over again.”
“Man, what a world. I’m sorry to hear that. What’s her name?”
He hung his head low, stared at the plastic button eyes of his panda. “Betsy.”
I swiveled rapidly in his direction, spots before my eyes, my ears ringing in a high pitched ululation. The sound seemed the cry of some victorious ghost as it landed a punch.
A croak escaped between my lips, “Betsy. What do you mean—Betsy?”
“That’s her name. She was attacked by some guy who almost killed her. I just found out that she’s been transferred from a hospital in Boston to the clinic near where her parents live.”
“In New Hampshire?” Dazed, it seemed I was talking, not to Hank, but to some tactical plan laid out by fate.
“Yeah, good guess. The Saint Rose Clinic near Saint Paul’s School, that’s where her dad teaches.”
“So she’s not at Massachusetts General anymore?”
“No, she was moved today. How’d you know she was at Mass Gen?”
“Her name’s Betsy Polczewski.” I held up my panda, tickled absently at the silky fake fur of one black ear. “She’s the same girl I was bringing this bear to.”
Hank slapped himself back into his seat. “No.”
“Yes, but I was getting off in Boston. I didn’t know she’d been transferred.”
“You’re not really... but you knew her name and the hospital and...” He was experiencing the same shock as I was.
We sat silently staring at our pandas.
“It makes you wonder what the gods want.” He said it flatly.
“I think just to do our best, like bring a gift to a girl in trouble.”
“Yeah, but we were doing it anyway. We didn’t need to meet each other.”
“Maybe it’s their way of saying ‘Good job, keep it up, we’re with you, and here’s a wonderful surprise to remind you someone’s watching out for Betsy.’ ”
“You mean like they’re saying they exist and can perform awe-inspiring miracles?”
“Hank, I don’t know, maybe all life is miracle after miracle, and we just don’t notice. We’ve been lucky.”
“Blessed.” He held the toy to his chest. “These are special bears. I never believed in God, but I’m always reading those fantastic stories about ancient heroes and the gods and strange beasts. I never thought that maybe adventurous deeds still need to be performed.”
“What do you mean, Hank?”
“These are magic bears. We’re supposed to get them to Betsy. Maybe they’ll make her get better.”
When we pulled into Boston, Hank told me the bus was continuing on to Concord. I asked the driver if I needed to buy a new ticket or just pay him.
“Buy a ticket. We’ll be here half an hour. Do you have any suitcases?”
“No, just this bag and bear. I’ll be back.”
“No problem.”
I called out to Hank, “You going to stretch your legs?”
“No, I’m fine.” He gave me a friendly wave, but he was looking around the bus with a puzzled expression.
After stepping outside, I lit up a smoke and watched the driver unlock the luggage compartment to remove suitcases for passengers departing in Boston. I was hungry and wondered if Hank wanted something to eat.
I climbed the three steps back into the Greyhound. Hank wasn’t in his seat. Looking down the aisle, there was one middle-aged man with a slicked back ducktail, chewing on a toothpick and staring out his window, plus two women in pill box hats sitting with each other, talking and laughing about Don Knotts in the movie The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.
I walked the length of the bus, checking every seat and behind the unlocked bathroom door. Hank wasn’t on the vehicle. The pink and green shopping bag sat propped up on his seat, the bear’s black ears poking out the top. His sports carryall was gone.
After another search of the bus, and growing more puzzled as each seat declared itself empty, I thought I must have somehow missed him making his way to the bus terminal.
I bought a ticket to Concord, called out for Hank in the bathroom, and walked around the waiting area, looking at each person as if my new traveling companion had disguised himself and I’d spot him—under the black man’s hat, in the polka-dot patterned dress of the grandmother with her two grandchildren, behind the lipstick of the young bride, or wearing the uniform of her new husband.
Nowhere. He was nowhere.
I checked the bus once more, put my bag and bear on my seat, and stationed myself at the bottom of the bus doorsteps, nervously smoking, wondering where Hank was.
The driver paused next to me and lit one up himself. “You going on to Concord?”
“Yes.” I showed him my ticket.
“We’re leaving soon as I finish my smoke.”
“There was a kid on the bus, maybe about fourteen years old. He was sitting next to me. He’s not anywhere around. He was going on to Concord.”
“Kid with the braces, kind of slobbers when he talks?” He took off his cap and adjusted a broken piece of the inner leather headband.
“Yeah, that’s him.”
He squinted through a voluminous cloud of cigarette smoke, looking at me sidelong. “Kid rides this bus like clockwork. Every Saturday, gets on in Providence with a one way ticket to Boston. I’ve been driving this route for four years. He’s a regular. I don’t remember him ever going on to Concord.”
“It’s just odd. He was talking about Concord. I didn’t see him get off, and he’s not in the building. Do you know if someone picks him up?”
“No, I never noticed. Boston is a busy stop. I get right to unloading the luggage. One thing I hav
e noticed is the poor kid is still wearing those damn braces. He doesn’t look a day older than when I first recognized him as a regular. Realized it one trip while I was thinking about my boy. Chip, that’s my son, had started shaving, growing almost as tall as me, and his shoulders were bulking out.” He glanced in my direction, taking note that I was still listening, stubbed out his cigarette, and started to climb the steps. “I guess it takes all kinds. My boss, he must be forty, but he’s got one of those baby faces that’ll never change. C’mon, all aboard.”
I didn’t believe Hank had walked off the bus in Boston. Hank was part of the spell being woven around me—a panda in the chair where he had sat and told me we were on a miraculous quest to help Betsy, the now half-empty bus with the two women laughing about ghosts, the driver saying the kid hadn’t changed appearance in four years, Hank waving goodbye.
He was gone, a visitor affirming some truth that I once could only have referred to as perplexing or frightful. The awe of mystery I felt as I fell into my seat not only further derailed my perception of how the world functioned, but also offered tangible, yet unimaginable possibilities of another set of rules to the physical universe. My eyes had never learned to recognize these rules, my laughter had never echoed with understanding of them, nor had my feet welcomed any other ground than the earth I was born onto, but my natural barriers to cryptic signals from monsters and feathers, jump-ropers and Polaroids, shadows and pandas continued to crumble apart.
I was learning to relate more clearly to what appeared to be an alternate reality.
And Hank had been there, acting on some invisible signal, nudging me, then moving on, leaving a message and a toy bear.
There was nothing to do but continue on with Hank’s quest. In seeking answers to the terrifying riddles of Monster Alley, I had chosen to act on intuitive hunches. By doing so, I was gathered deeper into mystery, unable to turn away from the direction it pointed me in.
What if I go insane, believing I can unravel a secret that may not be able to be unraveled? It seems to me the slightest insinuation may be the clue to unlocking another secret. Did whatever energy that brought Hank and I together need us, specifically, to further its mission? If we hadn’t met, would there be other paths to achieve the same purpose, whatever it may be? Is there a cognizant force planning every detail of this bus ride? If so, does it know me? Who does it invite and dismiss? If it is nothing more than disconnected, dangling happenings, how does it lock itself into synchronous events?
I can’t answer.
Hank didn’t believe in God.
Yet, I can’t dismiss this greatest of mysteries. Somewhere there’s a mystical dog whistle blowing and I can hear it. Man, I wouldn’t be surprised if all the strangeness I’ve witnessed is brought about by Betsy’s antimatter stuff being sucked into a black hole that’s jumping through a wormhole somewhere. Maybe everywhere. Maybe into nowhere.
At that moment, a feeling came over me that I can only describe as acceptance by some otherness. Simultaneously, my right hand felt energized, like it did when I drew, and I remembered it carving sand away, the old man watching. Paradoxically, I believed that wherever my trail took me, like a completed Zobe, it wouldn’t exist the moment I reached it.
Staring at the pine forests flashing by, raising my eyes to the blue above, feeling the warmth of sunlight enhanced by the window glass, I reached into Hank’s bag and brought his bear onto my lap. I wanted the touch of the two miracle pandas.
Are you a spirit, Hank? Are you an enigma like Jenny? Were you truly puzzled, or do you know secrets like Amelia must? Do you know where Mister Pigeon is? Are you aware of Doctor Steel and his intentions?
No matter, I’ll carry on. I don’t think I could ever turn off this trail now.
Amelia touches Dylan, Dylan mentions Boston, Teresa says go with love, Hank explains our journey to be a fantastic mission to deliver the magical pandas and punctuates it by leaving the next step to me. To accomplish that quest I had to believe there was a reason for a ghost to have me deliver a panda to someone he loved. Most would call me insane if I acted on that belief. I knew that if I didn’t act, I would betray my role.
Feeling at fault for the terrible attack on Betsy, I placed my trust in Hank’s effort and his dedication to express how much he cared for her to be my guide.
Betsy’s laughter, intelligence, and sexuality had left an imprint on me, though now the effect was torturous as I thought about her laying in a vegetative state. Feeling each second as desperation, determined I had a message for Betsy, I sped north to Saint Rose’s. Vexations turned to prayers. Prayers coagulated into dreams. Dreams conjured a tear onto the awestruck face staring back at me from the reflection in the bus window.
Chapter 35
The statue of Saint Rose depicted a young woman wearing a garland of roses in her hair, staring to the heavens.
Two nuns dressed in flowing habits and medieval headgear walked past me. I looked at the pandas I clutched. The turmoil I felt in facing Betsy was not so simple as black and white robes or bears. To assume I was delivering something no one else could, that I had been seemingly handpicked to do so, terrified me. I had no idea what to expect and wished Hank was beside me with his enthusiasm, faith, and purpose.
A priest eyed me suspiciously as I stood on the walkway in front of the rehabilitation center. My expression matched his for I didn’t trust institutionalized religion. The small church next to the clinic seemed more a threat than a comfort. Despite the good works of individuals, I held a prejudice against anyone who chose to dedicate themselves to God by camouflaging their soul within an archaic, gold-encrusted religion. Believing in a book to guide oneself in the ways of the dogma that had ensconced itself into humanity’s consciousness for the last two thousand years made no sense to me.
At that moment I carried my faith in two stuffed panda bear toys.
When I was nine years old, I had lain in bed for days with a terrible fever. My vision was blurry, my throat swollen and cracked. My skin, bones, and muscles were on fire, every cell wracked with pain. Agony was my existence. Suffering without relief, something extraordinary responded to my plight. I looked up through a tunnel of hallucinatory, searing needles into a heaven of blue, high above me. A bright star of white light, a vision, shone there, in the middle of all that blue. A wonderful comforting essence wrapped me into a bundle and placed me in a safe burrow deep within myself. The constant torment couldn’t penetrate there, and I rested in that hallowed place, protected as the light soothed me. My body continued to burn for another day or so as I drifted in and out of sleep, always aware of the healing presence hovering over me.
When I recovered, I didn’t tell anyone about the experience, but, despite being private about it, I believe that gracious light was the catalyst to my doubt about preaching and learning faith by rote.
A few years later, in an argument with my parents about going to confirmation classes, I expressed my distrust of religion.
“What does God care if I memorize the books of the Old Testament?”
“Don’t speak of God like that,” Mom said harshly, appalled at my arrogance.
“I’d think God is pretty busy with stars blowing up and wiping out entire galaxies, trying to hear all sorts of prayers, and creating new kinds of bugs and dinosaurs, and doesn’t care if I forgot Deuteronomy on some church test in Yardley, Pennsylvania,” I snapped back.
Her voice surged hysterically. “It’s important that you know the message of the Bible.”
“It’s a book. Even I could write a nearly unintelligible, boring book about wars and whatever, then have a miraculous hero appear and tell everybody they should live in peace,” I answered with a sneer.
Whack.
My mother smacked me on the head with a Bible while screaming wild-eyed, “You mean you don’t believe in the Ten Commandments?” With that crash against my skull, I understood the dang
er and madness that book could instill in people.
Like I said, I didn’t care for organized religion, along with its preachings, history or pretentious trappings.
I believed in that light that had comforted me in my illness.
Dismissing my inner conflicts, my resolve strengthened by my memories, I strode past the white-collared man, and pushed open the doors to the clinic.
The nun at the front desk was friendly and thought it wonderful of me to bring Betsy a gift. She asked if I was a relative and clicked her tongue in dismay when I told her I wasn’t. I could see she was going to deny me permission to visit. Telling her I had come all the way from New York to place the bears in the room with Betsy, I laughingly told her to drag me out if I stayed more than thirty seconds. I held the bears up and gave her a puppy-dog pleading, what-harm-can-it-do look.
She patted my hand and laughed. “Oh you’re a charmer. Quickly now.” Marching in front of me, she glanced back and commented, “It’s such a shame. You understand she can’t speak and won’t show any sign of recognizing you.”
As we walked, the helpful woman murmured to herself more than once, “Such a pretty girl.”
She held up a finger outside room 24. “One minute, tops.”
Betsy was lying in a hospital bed, her eyes vacant, glazed and colorless as the bland ceiling they faced. As I approached her, there was no indication that my movement registered with her. The blankness of her expression, slack white-lipped mouth, and sickly gray pallor engulfed me with grief as I heard a distant giggle from our time together whimper into silence. Her shaven head was discolored with patches of mercurochrome stains. The left side of her skull behind her ear was a mass of blackened scars and stitches fighting to hold her scalp together. Yellow and purple bruises dipped into concave depressions to where bone and skin once helped shape her loveliness. Irregular, misshapen red welts and puffy lumps under her eyes looked to be a rash of foreign growths. Small scabs and a roughly shaped pucker of broken skin covered one jawbone.
Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Page 17