by Lorn, Edward
7
Brenda had left James Turk, her husband of fourteen years, after finding suspicious pornography on his tablet. The girls might have been of age, but she doubted it. The pictures saved to the device’s memory were not images someone was likely to find on legal adult entertainment sites. The girls in the photos did not look sexy. They looked indifferent. Stoned. Their barely developed bodies and stiff posture bothered Brenda far more than they would have if they’d been engaged in consensual sexual acts. Something about the sight of those vacant young women was dirtier, fouler than any sex act they could ever perform.
Upon finding the images (she’d been looking for a book to read while James had been at work), she put the tablet back where she’d found it. Oddly enough, the first thought to come to her mind once the tablet was out of her hands had been, “This is what he gets for not buying me my own eReader.” And then she had cried.
She’d confronted James that evening. He laughed it off, said the pictures were perfectly legal and no worse than “the kind of shit you’d find in Barley Legal.” Brenda had never read (does one really read a magazine entitled Barely Legal) that men’s publication and certainly didn’t like the sound of it. What she disliked even more was the nonchalant attitude her husband had displayed.
Did he really think it was all right to find enjoyment from images of seemingly-underage models? How could he sit there and seem nonplussed by her finding such a thing in his possession?
My God, she had thought, I’ve been living with a pervert.
Whether or not that was true, it was Brenda’s truth and she would not be convinced otherwise.
It wasn’t until Brenda had said, “I can’t live with you anymore,” that James had stopped laughing. He’d sat down next to her on the bed and attempted to put an arm around her.
“Don’t be like this,” he’d said.
She’d slithered out from under him, as a person might shrink away from something dangerous, something vile, like a poisonous spider.
“Brenda? Are you serious?” James had asked.
She’d only nodded and left the room, and two days later, left their life together.
There were several reasons why she’d not called the police on her husband, but the only important one, the one that helped her sleep at night, was that Anthony shouldn’t have to live with knowing his father was a sick man. Besides, she had no evidence that James’s love of teenaged girls extended to physical contact. And, when she really thought about it, pictures weren’t that bad, were they?
Were they?
So no, she hadn’t called the police. Anthony wouldn’t be picked on for having a possible pedophile for a father. He wouldn’t be alienated because his dad found little girls stroke-worthy. Problem solved. Or at least it was in Brenda’s mind.
Did that make her a bad person? Probably. But she didn’t think anyone was perfect. To her, it wasn’t a matter of letting James’s transgressions slide, it was a matter of protecting her child. She could be a horrible person. That was all right. As long as she was being a good mother in the process, anything was forgivable.
They entered Pauma Valley shortly after nightfall. Anthony was asleep in the passenger seat, his chin dug into his chest. She could hear rap music softly issuing from his ear buds, which were attached to the cell phone in his lap.
In the seat behind Anthony’s, Bobs was playing a game on his own phone. She liked Bobs. He was good for Anthony. Kept her son out of trouble. James hadn’t liked the kid though. Brenda had always known her husband had a problem with people of a darker skin tone than himself. James had been one of those guys that issued statements like “My black friend said…” and “She’s pretty for a black girl.” Always the designation. Never just “My friend said…” or “She’s pretty.” Subtly racist, if there was such a thing. Sometimes, Brenda wondered who was worse: the guys wearing their mom’s good sheets to rallies or men like her ex-husband. Hidden things were always worse, weren’t they? To be racist and dishonest about it seemed to her more detrimental to society than being openly bigoted.
Was she showing her own racism by having these thoughts simply because she’d looked into the mirror and seen Bobs in the backseat? Was that a quiet statement about how she saw her son’s friend as different?
Bobs glanced up from whatever app he was playing, met her eyes in the rearview, smiled. She returned it, but her own felt forced. She wasn’t in the mood to smile. She was a child who’d just learned that Santa Claus wasn’t real. A girl realizing one breast was larger than the other or that her nose was hooked and slightly witch-like. The idea that she saw Bobs as different was a brick to the chest. But to treat him any different would be to perpetuate that racism. So what could she do?
Stop thinking about it, she told herself. The more you think about how you see him as different the more different he becomes. The answer is simple: do nothing.
Isn’t that what we—white people—have been doing about racism for centuries? Participating in or ignoring the problem?
Brenda figured the answer to this societal issue was better left to a far more intelligent person. She turned on the radio and found a hip hop station.
See, she was down with rap music. How could she be racist if she—
Fuck.
She flicked off the radio and grabbed the steering wheel at ten and two. She’d focus on driving. Maybe that would take her mind off how terribly white she was.
“You okay, Ms. Turk?” Bobs asked. She looked in the rearview and found him gazing at her in the glass. His cell phone was in his lap but hadn’t yet switched off. He’d stopped playing his game to ask her if she was all right. Sweet kid.
“I’m fine, Bobs. Just thinking. Why?”
“You look bothered is all. Like you got something on your mind.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you could say that.”
Bobs nodded. “I think too much too. Like, I’ve been thinking about something my dad told me over breakfast. He wasn’t too keen on me coming on this trip. It’s whatever, though. He was cool when I left. But he looked at me while we were talking and…I don’t know, man, it was heavy.”
“Heavy?” Brenda asked, finding his choice of words interesting. “What was so heavy about it?”
“I don’t know. Like…You ever feel crushed by someone else’s worries?”
Whoa. This kid was deep.
Brenda kept her tone light. “Sure.”
“Yeah. Figured you had.”
Brenda expected him to say more, found herself wanting him to say more, but Bobs simply went back to his game.
She drove on into the night, the yellow-dashed pavement unrolling ahead of her like a length of onyx carpet.
8
Moss woke up rested and ready to start his day. He left the couple’s packs inside the tent, but removed the tent pole. The tent collapsed inward. Moss grabbed one corner and dragged it toward the trail, the one that led to his pool.
Birds flew overhead, gliding from branch to branch and singing gaily. The sun, where it shot javelins through the canopy overhead, was warm on his shoulders. The air was redolent of moss and dew. He smiled as he traveled. It was such a beautiful day to be alive.
At the pool’s edge, he dumped the contents of Monica and Ralph’s cooler into the tent-turned-tarp. He tied everything off and stuck the mass into the open cooler. There was too much to fit, but that was all right. He didn’t mean for it to be able to close. This was a boat, not a trunk.
He pulled the Igloo into the water and swam out with it in tow. The water was colder below than above, the surface having been significantly warmed by direct sunlight. Icy tendrils seemed to shake around his calves as he moved farther out. The molded-plastic cooler made a terrific vessel for floating his newly acquired items across the pool. Kicking lazily, just enough to provide slow forward movement, Moss pushed the cooler toward the waterfall and what was hidden behind it.
Before heading through, Moss washed off in the falls. The rust-colored blood coating his
arms up to the elbow first turned crimson, then red, until finally it drained away in pink rivulets. He scrubbed his long hair with his ragged nails (he had a problem with chewing them). He scratched his scalp, drew blood. Wincing, he continued to rinse himself until his flesh squeaked when rubbed.
He carved through the cascading sheet of blue. The Igloo took on water, but stayed afloat. Back here, the water seemed to steam. Mist hovered above the water, settled like a fog on the surface. He shoved the cooler farther along. Finally, it bumped into the hollow’s wall. He waded right, disappeared into what appeared to be nothing but an algae-slick rock face. In reality, it was a naturally formed optical illusion. The algae coated the walls in such a way to give the entrance to his secret place a two-dimensional effect. But the closer he came to the wall the less the illusion worked. There was obviously an opening here, but you either had to be lucky (as he had been when he first found it) or know exactly what you were looking for (as he did now). Pushing the cooler, Moss kicked into the closet-sized space. Once inside, he moved left, behind the wall of rock someone would see upon first swimming through the waterfall. Here, as with the Handy’s haunt, the way opened into a larger chamber; this one more square in comparison to the circular haunt he’d left yesterday.
Home sweet home.
Moss pressed himself up, twisted, and sat down on smooth rock. He kicked his legs in the water as he tugged the tent and its contents onto the bank.
He contemplated heading deeper into the woods today. Maybe scoping out the Big Eye. He wouldn’t actually step within, but he thought it would be fun to observe the workers. The fleshy people he so often had to kill to satiate the Handy’s fierce and never-ending hunger. He could take Stuffy. He hadn’t taken Stuffy anywhere in a long while.
In complete darkness, Moss yanked the now-empty cooler onto the bank and stood. He about-faced and took three tentative steps forward, hands up, palms out. Not quite far enough. One more step. His palms found the far wall cold and wet. From here he sidestepped until his feet reached his bed, which consisted of a thin pad he’d stolen from a lady. She’d used it to protect her knees from the forest floor while she made complicated shapes with her body. She’d tasted salty and her meat was tough. Moss had not enjoyed eating her.
He dropped down onto the mat and crawled forward until he bumped into his lantern. He twisted the dial, grabbed the book of matches he’d left next to the lantern, chose a match and struck it. He lit the wick and adjusted the knob. With his home place illuminated, he rolled over onto his back and sat up. Directly across from him was a stack of salvaged junk: tents, bags that could be slept in, makeshift furniture consisting of tarp and metal poles that collapsed in on themselves for easy storage, and over a dozen empty cases of beer. The cases, stolen from campgrounds and other gathering spots throughout the years, were good for storing stuff. One contained his shiny favorites: rings and necklaces and earrings he’d taken from the dead. Another box held inedible pieces taken from the insides of people: screws and wires and devices and steel plates. Others contained books he couldn’t read and pencils and pens he’d never be able to write with. He did however use any scavenged markers he found to draw rudimentary pictures on the interior walls of his home.
There—a yellow sun. Here—a tree. Over there, a man with an impossibly large penis, not unlike Moss’s. But this man was not Moss. He was what Moss desired. Sometimes, Moss would lie back on his mat and think about his well-endowed guy. He imagined putting his penis inside the man (as he had done to Ralph yesterday) and squirting inside him. But, in Moss’s fantasies, this man of Moss’s imagination wasn’t dead like Ralph had been. This man was warm and loving and cuddly and eager to please. This man had been Moss’s father.
Fluid collected in the corners of Moss’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks. His chest hurt and his stomach was tight, as if he were hungry. But that couldn’t be. He’d eaten only yesterday.
Thoughts of his father drifted away and Moss recalled why he’d risked wasting the fuel in his lantern. Stuffy. He wanted it handy if he chose to travel to the Big Eye today.
Moss found Stuffy in one of the beer cases. He hung it on his neck by its strap, then went out the way he’d come in.
9
The last time Blake Fuller was in the mountains was during the Christopher Dorner fiasco in February of 2013. What a disaster. He’d been with the LAPD at the time, was nine months shy of a pay raise, when Dorner went on his rampage. In a manifesto published online shortly after killing the daughter of a former police captain, Dorner said he was working toward clearing his name within the department. Hell of a way to get that done, Blake remembered thinking. Officers set fire to the cabin wherein Dorner was barricaded and cooked the Marine alive. Moments before the blaze began, Blake had heard one of his fellow officers holler, “Burn the motherfucker down!”
Due process, to some members of the LAPD, meant absolutely fuck-all. What Dorner had done was heinous. His crimes were inexcusable. But the LAPD’s response was equally reprehensible. Being a black police officer in southern California wasn’t easy to begin with, but it worsened after Dorner’s trial by fire. A month later, Blake gave his notice.
Dorner’s demise had taken place in Lake Tahoe, in the San Bernardino Mountain. This was Palomar Mountain State Park, located in beautiful San Diego County. Now Blake was playing for the forestry department instead of the LAPD. First day on the job and he had no idea what to expect. He’d been partnered with a pudgy officer named Charlie Pointer, an old dude who was a month or two from retirement. So far, Blake liked Charlie. As of right now, Charlie was copping a squat behind a copse of trees. They’d passed a port-o-john on the way up here, but Blake supposed Charlie hadn’t needed to go then, nor had the old guy been able to hold it until they reached the observatory.
The air shifted and Blake caught a whiff of Charlie’s leavings. Blake wondered if the old guy would live to see retirement, because it sure as hell smelled as if something vital inside Charlie had died and started to decay.
A hawk glided over the dirt track the forestry pickup was currently parked on. Blake, who was leaning against the grill of the truck, waved at the bird. The hawk squawked as if in reply. Blake grinned. Maybe this job wouldn’t be too bad.
“You ever had Miguel’s on the Border?” Charlie was zipping his fly as he parted a pair of bushes and pushed through. He had a roll of toilet paper pinched between chin and chest. Once his fly was secure, he grabbed the roll and held it aloft, as if the tissue was what stunk.
A horseshoe of white hair, which seemed brilliant juxtaposed against Charlie’s brown skin, hugged the perimeter of his head. The top of the man’s skull shined in the sunlight. How someone could be so perfectly bald up top and still have hair on the sides, Blake couldn’t fathom.
“Never been to the border,” Blake said. “Farthest south I’ve gone is Chula Vista.”
“It’s not on the border. That’s its name—Miguel’s on the Border.” Charlie burped into the back of his hand, the one holding the TP. “Anyway, if you ever have the chance to eat there, stay away from the salsa. I think they make it with habaneros instead of jalapeños, and my asshole is paying the price. Lava, young blood. I’m shitting—”
Blake held up a hand. “I get your drift.”
“Good deal. Ready to go?” Charlie asked, twirling the pickup’s keys on one heavily calloused finger.
“I don’t know. Are you straight?”
“I hope so. Keep the windows down, just in case. I might let loose some mustard gas before we reach the observatory. It’d be a damn shame to kill your ass first day on the job.”
Palomar Mountain State Park had several tourist attractions, but none as cool as the Palomar Observatory. During orientation, Blake had learned that the park had just recently, within the past month, finished a massive improvement project. The observatory had been fully restored but had yet to reopen to the public. Before the improvement project, the domed building housing the Hale Telescope had been the pre
ferred campgrounds for every rural squatter within a twenty-mile radius. To Blake’s knowledge, all of them had been chased away.
Charlie pulled the truck around a soft curve and crested a hill. Up here, Blake could see the observatory perfectly. A white pill in a see of green. Its newly painted white dome reflected the sun making the building sparkle like a diamond under a halogen.
The road ran downhill for half a mile and they were once again bracketed by trees. Another half a mile of dirt track and woods before they came to the new gate the park had put up around the observatory. Charlie pulled up to the card reader, which was on a pole all its own. He unclipped his badge, slid it through the reader, punched in his code.
“You’ll get your code once you get past the probationary period. Three months. I think you’ll make it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Blake fingered his temporary lanyard and swallowed blossoming anger. Was he really upset that they wouldn’t trust him with a code to the observatory for an entire ninety days? Yeah, he actually was. He couldn’t place his anger, though, couldn’t put a finger on what about the probationary period irked him. Perhaps it was the idea of being untrusted, of having to prove that he deserved California’s Park and Recreation Department’s trust. As if he were a criminal on parole. That was how he’d felt while working for the LAPD, as if he’d constantly had something to prove to his fellow officers. No, not just his fellow officers—the white officers specifically. He’d always felt like a good dog, jumping through hoops and pleasing his masters. The bitch of it was this: Blake didn’t know if this was his perception of how he’d been treated or how he had actually been treated. He tried to think back to one scenario wherein someone had reacted differently to him than, say, a white officer. When he couldn’t think of one, he became even more angered. He felt like a child who’d just realized that he wasn’t as special as Mr. Rogers had promised him he was. Had his fellow officers seen him as just another guy instead of another black guy? Moreover, had they burned Dorner alive due to the murders the former-cop had committed, or because he’d been a black man trying to shine a light on the department’s racism? So many questions and zero answers.