CHAPTER ELEVEN
NEW GIRL
I walked until the morning was tapping on noon and beyond. Sometimes all I wanted was to be with my family. Other times all I wanted was to be as far away as possible.
I had hoped the simple act of walking would help me escape the debilitating depression I felt, but it remained, slowing each step and permeating my body like a poison working its way through the system.
Had I been such a bad husband, such a bad father, such an awful human being that the person closest to me in life would do her best to eliminate any possible memory of my existence before the body was even cold?
The answer stood out by the curb in a black plastic receptacle. If Tina could have found a way, I was sure, I would have been standing there with it.
It had been easy in my countless arguments with her to rebut an action or inaction, to explain away this adultery or that indiscretion, but how do you justify an entire life from beyond the grave? How do you debate with tangible argument that the love you had for someone should mean as much to them? How do you convince them that they should now feel a great loss and suggest a timetable for their grief?
What words can you say that will give them pause to at least recognize that all you have been in life is now stored in a box--or two--and that it would only be proper and decent to save something as a last memorial, before all is erased, out of simple respect for the dead?
There are none.
The living have the only words which will be heard, and it’s in their memories and impressions and prejudices that will make the judgments which stand. They will measure out loss and love and give it meaning from what they remember or choose to forget. The dead can just shut the hell up and rest in peaceful silence with the knowledge that their time for argument or testimony was in their time for living.
And nothing will change that, ever. So you come to grips with it in death the way you did in life.
You don’t.
You leave it down the road and keep moving, always moving toward the job at hand while the poison makes its way through your soul.
So I walked and searched, seeking familiarity in the former world that was now my only reality. I called her name: Here, Teresa, come out, come out, whosever in you. Are you under this rock? In this dumpster? No. Not yet. In the morgue? Not yet.
I found her near the trolley station, making the Grand Loop from one side of the street, down the block, then over to the other side and repeating the process, moving, always moving toward the job at hand. It was not the busy time of the workday, but like any street vendor she was out showing her wares for future customers.
I walked beside her for a moment, then reached over and touched her head...
...and found her cowering in the corner of the bungalow as blackness engulfed her, then picked her up and threw her outside before seeping back in…
I pulled out impatiently. I was in no mood for self-pity that wasn't mine.
Third trip around and no business. A scraggly black woman stood at the back of the liquor store. She was standing propped against the wall and as we neared she put the gaze on us, the basic look of the street, seeing if we were marks for money, sex, or simple diversion from life. Her eyes were glazed and focused on anything upright out of force of habit. She had half a cigarette in her mouth that defied gravity by sticking to her upper lip. Her skin was a leathery film that hung on her bones like a wet sheet over a clothesline. Her face was the perfect example of why it’s called the world’s oldest profession; maybe she had been the first. She was anywhere from forty-five to a hundred. I guessed ninety-nine. And a half.
"Pretty baby,” she said to Teresa, who unwisely walked to her. I folded my arms and waited. "Got a light?" she asked. She took the butt from her lips with two fingers yet her lips remained frozen in a pucker and she took a step and nearly fell over.
"Here, sit here." Teresa led her to the shady side of the building and helped her slide down the stucco to a sitting position.
The woman coughed, waving her hand.
Teresa patted her on the back until she stopped choking. "Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure. Thank you, honey. What’s your name?”
“Teresa.”
”Kenya.” She started another coughing spree.
"Can I get you something?"
"A match."
Or an extra lung, I thought.
"Wait here." Teresa walked into the liquor store.
Great, I thought. My son is growing up without me, my wife is doing her best to forget I ever existed, and I spend eternity babysitting Skank and Skankette. I looked away, annoyed, and thought about the idea I’d had earlier. It had been a small seed of a vision, but as I stood and stared it became a hazy picture forming in my mind’s eye. Then it grew into inspiration, either by my will or another, until it blossomed into something more tangible.
I stepped over the woman while she coughed phlegm onto the sidewalk and hurried off toward the bungalow. If my plan worked, then Jim would be out of everyone’s life and all the tasks I’d been assigned would be completed. Relieved of obligation, I would then be free to stay with my family and perhaps give them some reminder that I had, at one time, existed.
I found none of the blackness in the bungalow which had so terrified Teresa’s mind, though I did find Jim lying on the couch, so I suppose he qualified in a different form. I stood over him and tried to massage thoughts into his mind.
"They're all over you, little legs crawling over your skin, down your back, on your neck, touching your ears. You can't get them off, you can't brush them away. They're all over the house, the dirty, sticky house. You need to escape, get out, get away, before they crawl in your ears and nostrils and mouth..."
He was sweating, running his hands through his greasy hair and breathing hard as drops ran off his face.
"You need to get to a place where they can't find you. You need another dose, a pure dose, an overdose. Get away, get away, while there's still time, before they get inside your brain..."
His eyes opened wide and he looked around the room. He got up and shook his body, hitting at imaginary things. But I still had a grip.
"Here they come, buzzing in your brain, you can't shut them out, they're coming in to eat away at what's left. They'll ooze through your fingers, no matter how tightly you clamp them to your ears. Here they come!"
Jim yelled and ran out the front door with his hands holding his head.
I walked quickly back to Teresa. With Jim out of the way for a little while, it was time for part two of the plan. If I could get her on the way out of town while he was occupied, all would be taken care of. My job with her would be over and I could begin rebuilding my life, or at least my legacy.
I got back to the liquor store and found them both against the wall where I’d left them. Except now Teresa was sitting with eyes closed against the wall and the old woman was kneeling in front of her.
"Don't you worry, pretty baby," the woman was saying as she held Teresa's head and patted it softly. "It'll be all right now." She let go of Teresa as if putting her to bed, kissed the top of her head, stood and walked off. Teresa had a peaceful expression on her face though dirty streaks from her eyes showed she'd been crying.
I'd missed something.
I dropped to my knees and put my hand on her head, pushing indelicately into her thoughts. I felt her squirm as I met her outer consciousness but kept pushing beyond that and began searching in the dark maze of her memories. People popped out at me from everywhere, images and feelings and faces that beckoned like lascivious demons and tried to draw me in and share their fleshly experiences. I kept my eyes straight, twisting like a blind rat in that gooey cavern. Then, up ahead, I saw a light more luminous than the others. Her last memory. So strong was it, I squinted as I got near and it took all my strength and will to get close enough to dive in...
...and suddenly I was her, stooping to light the old woman's cigarette. Up close she really wasn't old at all. Maybe late-forties, early
fifties. The time on the street had been ruinous. She inhaled, closing her eyes and resting against the building, then she coughed into her arm.
"Are you all right?" I asked, sitting beside her.
She smiled. "I am now. Why are you here?"
I looked at her, confused. Had she forgotten? "You wanted a match..."
"No. I mean here, on the street. You're too pure to be here."
"Pure?" I laughed and crossed my legs. It was a word from a different language. "That's funny."
"Here," the old woman said, and tapped my chest. It sounded hollow in my ears. "You're too pure of heart. Why are you here?"
I shook my head and shrugged. The shrug was because I couldn’t remember. How did I get here? I thought. It was a blur of days. "I don't remember. I feel like I've always been."
"But you haven't.
"No, I haven't."
"Tell me about that, before the time you haven't."
I closed my eyes. It was hard to think, as if something was in the way. "It's been Jim and me for so long. I had a friend, Darcy, I had known since high school. We lived together. One day Jim gave her boyfriend, Zack, a ride over to our place on his Harley. Boy, when I heard that the first time I thought the world was falling in. It looked so big and powerful, and him with his long hair and muscles. He had the whitest teeth when he looked up and smiled at me and asked if I wanted to go for a ride. I can still feel the power under me, and those muscles. I got on and put my arms around and held on tight. We've been together ever since." I stopped.
"What happened then?"
Memories came slowly, and when they did they were as if they belonged to someone else. A story I'd heard before, maybe a movie I’d seen but never lived. I couldn’t remember ever really living. "We moved in together and it was great for a while. I'd never been happier. We'd go places, be with friends, talk about what we wanted to do with our lives...but then he got hurt at work. He went on disability and couldn’t do what he had done before because of his back. Not working made him itchy, he said, and he started hanging around with different people. He started using pot more, then coke, meth. After he was arrested, he lost his disability so he sold his bike. I had to make some money and we kept moving because we couldn't pay rent and I lost touch with Darcy and I've been alone every since."
"A long time."
I nodded.
"Before that?"
I looked at her and wiped my eyes. They were wet. "Before that?" I stared through the moistness for a long time, my mind blank. Pictures formed on the surface of my eyes, strange images which took on stranger shapes. A place I'd been long ago. "Before that I lived at home. It was good...mostly good. But a lot of rules. My parents...didn't like me out late. Yelling. Anger. That's what I remember most before I left, all the rules. I wanted to be free. So I left."
"Are you free?"
"Free? No. Fifty bucks." The words came out without thinking. I began to giggle which became a laugh which became a gurgle which became a moan of desperate aloneness that seemed to go on forever until tears were steaming down my cheeks. I buried my face in my hands so no one would see and cried until my head hurt. I wiped my eyes with my palms and my nose with my shirt. Kenya's eyes were wet, as if she were crying with me, for me, but she was smiling. It seemed like that smile never left her face.
"Would you like it to stop?"
"What?"
"The pain. Would you like to get away?"
"Away? There is no away. There's only today, now, getting money and food. I used to dream of a house with a garden. Now my dream is a warm day and a warm night and warm food."
"How did you get that?" she asked, pointing.
I put my hand to my face. "I fell."
She looked at me without pity, but her eyes were full of the sadness of the streets. "If you could go anywhere, where would it be?"
I laughed. "That's easy, Mama Bella’s.” I pointed to an Italian restaurant across the street and down a bit. “I smell it every day. I’d go in and get a table and order one of everything and take all day to eat."
She laughed with me. "What about away from here Where would you go?"
I looked around. This spot and four blocks either way was my world. The whole universe. What could possibly be beyond? I said nothing for a long time. But an answer came.
"Home."
It was a strange word, but as I spoke, pictures came. Me as a little girl, a black and white plaid dress I wore to church. Friends coming over with their dolls, all of us having tea in my plastic playhouse. My mother in the kitchen with apron and big hair, cooking or preparing to cook. My father with a scowl, bringing cold impatience to whatever room he entered and an anger which he brought home from work and hissed out at everyone to relieve the pressures.
Fear. Love. Food. Home.
"Home."
"Why don't you go there?"
"It's not that easy."
"Why not?"
"Nothing is."
"What if it was?"
I shook my head as if she were crazy and I didn't understand. "All this time, all these years..." I shivered, trying to keep down the memories of yesterday which rose with the taste of vomit. I shook them off with a shiver. "It's not that easy," I said again.
"What if it was?"
I stared into her eyes, into her old face. What if it was? “I’ve lost the way.”
“What if you could find it?”
"I'd start walking. I'd walk down that road away from the city until there was nothing but blue sky ahead and brown haze behind. I'd walk until I was surrounded by trees and I'd drop to the ground and cover myself with the dead leaves."
Another memory came: me, maybe five years old, playing in the back yard of our house, walking slowly through the autumn leaves covering the grass, making huge piles my father would later burn but now to jump in and scatter then gather and jump in again and again. My father coming out of the garage and yelling at me for destroying his work, then helping me rake them in piles only to watch me scatter them as he laughed. One of the few times I remember him laughing.
I looked at the woman. "It's not so easy. I've tried before."
"Now you'll have help. You'll be able to go home again, soon."
I nodded without knowing why and she began to get fuzzy and unfocused. I blinked, then again, then closed my eyes and leaned against the wall of the building and slept under the warmth of the late afternoon sun.
I backed out drowsily, falling to the asphalt with a bump and finding myself sitting with legs crossed in front of Teresa who was still asleep. Kenya was gone. Someone was standing next to me, watching. Rollins.
"How long--?" I began, stopping to yawn.
"Long enough. Trace, you need to stay with her."
"Stay with her? I was just inside of her. I can't get much closer than that."
"You've been everywhere else, as well," he said. "What were you were doing with Jim?"
“Oh, that,” I said. “Don’t you already know?”
“Tell me anyway.”
I bounced to my knees, then stood. "I've got a plan. Listen, if we can get him out of the way for a day or two, her troubles will be over. We get rid of Jim and Teresa is free."
"How?"
"I've already got him on the run," I said. "I implanted some thoughts in his head and he took off. If I can keep doing that I can buy enough time so Teresa can get out of here."
He had a skeptical look.
"It'll work."
"Trace," he said, "let me give you the best advice you’ll ever get in any life: Don't think. Do what you're told."
"I also found out something else,” I said, ignoring him. “Jim might be involved in a murder."
"Oh?"
"Didn't know that, huh? See what happens when you don't not think?"
"Involved how?"
"Indirectly. I don't know the details. Right now it’s a matter of simple extortion. He knows something about it and is trying to get money from whoever was directly involved. If I can find out
who and how and why, and then relay that information to the cops, we can get him put away for a long time."
He nodded, considering. "Maybe. But until then, stay with--"
"Yeah, yeah. But what about my plan?"
He hesitated. "There's a lot I can't tell you, but you're partly right."
"I knew it. Which part? The murder?”
“Partly.”
“He’s involved?”
“Somewhat.”
“He knows about it.”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“What about my plan to get rid of him?”
“What about it?”
“Am I on the right track?” I asked.
“Partly.”
“I knew it," I said. "I felt it. I knew the minute it came to mind it was the right thing. Hey, is that significant? I mean, was it inspired?"
"Slow down," he said. "In a way you're on the right path, but in another way you're not even close. Either way, you need to stay with Teresa. That's your main task."
"What about Jim?"
"We'll take care of him. You take care of her."
"But," I started, then closed my mouth and moved my lips around like a chewing cow. "It's so damn slow.”
“You in a hurry?”
“I've already got him going in the right direction. If I keep pushing it won't be long before he's out of the picture."
"You've got him going in a direction, but not necessarily the one that's best for her, or anyone else."
"I don't understand. All things work to the good, right?"
"If a plan is the right one, there’s no need to rush it. It will happen because it will happen. So do your part and don’t worry about the rest. Now, what’s your part?”
I said it in a slow monotone. “Stay with the girl.”
“Right. And don’t think.”
I looked down at Teresa, sound asleep and beginning to snore. “This is so frustrating.”
“Why?”
“It’s so endlessly tiresome.”
He paused. “Then try something different.”
“Like what?”
"Try being her friend,” he said, fading away.
"Her friend?” I asked, watching drool move over her chin. “How do I do that?"
Trace the Dead Eye Page 11