Tommy glanced up and down the street nervously. There was nothing and no one in sight. “Can we get out of here, maybe sit down and talk some more?”
“Are you hungry?”
The pit in his stomach poked at him, and he was grateful for it because such an internal alarm system was an advantage in a place like this. But hunger, he wasn’t. “No.”
“Nor will you be, and you won’t be thirsty or tired either. Not in here.” Herb paused. “Follow me.”
The three of them walked in silence until reaching a café a few blocks away. The windows were gone but wooden pallets had been stacked up forming a wall. Herb gave a grunt as he pushed against the front door that was made entirely of metal. Once they were in, he shoved the pallets that were bracing the door with a shoulder check.
The café counter was empty save for a few torn menus but there were leather couches with matching ottomans. Broken tables were piled in the corner. Their legs had been removed and were hanging from nails on the far wall.
He must have followed Tommy’s gaze. “They’re like baseball bats, good for smashing the Brands. Hard for me to hold with these gloves but you could use them with no problem.”
“Why don’t you just take the gloves off?”
Herb’s face darkened with a hint of sadness as his good eye twitched. “Because I can’t, Tommy.” He gestured toward the couch. “Sit. We have a lot to talk about.”
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Tommy sat across from the boxer wondering when he’d gone insane. The other man was seated only a few feet away, as real as could be. A dream? More likely a nightmare or even more so, a prison, deep in the recess of his mind. Schizophrenics were detached in a world they created, an alternative reality that was real enough to them. So trapped are some of them, that all the Thorazine available can’t bring them back. Was he restrained in a psychiatric ward back in the real word?
Herb leaned forward, with his face turned so that his functioning eye was facing him. “I’m gonna tell you a few things and I’ll try not to sound rehearsed. You’re gonna have questions, hell I still do, and I’ll try to answer them but first, listen.” Midnight had stretched out at Herb’s feet like a bearskin rug. When he looked up at Tommy, it was if to say that everything was fine for the moment. He loved the dog.
“I don’t remember everything about my life in the Other, but enough, I think. I ‘m educated, not a genius, but educated. Graduated from high school and went on to college for a few years. I majored in Philosophy, can you believe it? But fighting was always my thing. It’s what made me feel alive. I fought in the amateurs but fell short of the Olympic trials. When I got my pro card at twenty-one, I was gonna be the next Ali, you know? Then I lost a few, then a few more. The training for ten hours a day and the few boring ass meals didn’t seem worth it anymore. I took a break but never really left. Fighters are always in the ring, even when they’re not. The crowd, the cigarette smoke, it’s why we exist, kid. That’s why boxers never retire when they should and wind up getting hurt.”
“Is that what happened to you? Why you’re bloodied up?”
Herb gave him a jack-o –lantern smile. Several teeth were missing, evidence of his craft.
“Hell no. I came back and started winning. The commission didn’t even want to give me a license figuring a forty-five year old unknown could do nothing for the sport and more importantly, revenue. But I paid the right people and got back in. After winning ten straight, they had to rank me and give me a shot. I met the champion, Joe “Tumble” Williams in the center of that ring and I was ready. What I knew, that he didn’t, was that I was on that night. He made the mistake of thinking I was slow like most old-timers. By round ten, I’d cut up his face pretty good with a steady diet of right hands. “Herb got up and started to pace. “ Between Rounds Twelve and Thirteen, I looked across at him while my corner was working on my eye. Williams was there but not really. I could tell that he was done. But champion that he was, he got up for the round. You see Tommy, even when fighters bad mouth each other there’s respect. They may not admit it, but it’s there.
“I dominated him in Round Thirteen. I kept looking at the ref while landing my rights but he didn’t seem to notice. Then Williams hit me with his own right that closed my eye for good. I countered with an uppercut and he went down on one knee.”
Herb stopped pacing and stared down at his gloves. “The adrenaline was pumping, kid. I don’t know why I threw it but my left hook nearly took his head off. His hands were down, you see, cause he was still trying to get up. I knew he was dead before he hit the canvass just by the angle of his head. It was twisted and there was that empty look in his eyes.”
Herb shook his head trying to compose himself. “Then I was here. I knew why I was here and what I had to do. I also knew how this place works as if it’d been programmed into me. The way I left the Other is the way I am now. These gloves are actually part of my body.”
Questions ricocheted in Tommy’s head and he fought to restore some order. Most prominent amongst them was how he could escape, something the boxer had alluded to earlier. “How do I get out?”
“I’ll answer that by first explaining where you are. I call it “the Bad Place.” When you die and leave the Other, your Spark, some call it the soul but I call the Spark, leaves the Other and comes to a junction. The Good Place and The Bad Place are like electrified sponges, great conductors of energy with the ability to absorb-”
“Heaven and Hell,” Tommy interjected. “Where does Purgatory fit in?”
“I didn’t call them that but one of those places is definitely a better place to be than the other. There is no middle place, no Purgatory, and there lies the problem. When there are only two options, there are some that should fall in the middle, but those Sparks have to go somewhere. So they are absorbed, mostly by the Bad Place. Here more energy is used to keep the Sparks trapped. The other Place, not so much, because anyone there tends to stay there willingly.”
Tommy shifted in his seat. A pounding began in his temples. “So am I one of those Grey Area Sparks? I don’t remember dying and from what you’ve told me, you don’t either.”
“I don’t know why some pieces are missing from the Other. What I do know is the situation we are in now and the rules of the Bad Place. To start, it’s run by the Mayor of Richmond Hill. He wants to keep as much energy here as possible through a steady diet of Sparks. How? Sparks are absorbed here. You see all this around you?” Herb swung his arms around, picked up a menu and then let it drop. “This menu needs energy to exist. This whole place was created for you, for familiarity. For everyone else, it’s something else. I’ve been in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Cairo, Egypt. It’s like different stage backgrounds, ever changing, ever evolving.”
“So you’ve tried to help others here, in their personalized worlds?”
“One thousand five hundred sixty-four others. I’m hoping that you’re the one that will make it.” He noticed Tommy’s face change and leaned over to him. “They weren’t you, that’s my point. Some lost their mind, some just didn’t have the will to live, and some both. Every time they failed, I failed. My ticket out of here is based on your success. “
“As if there wasn’t enough pressure,” Tommy murmured. He didn’t know if he was tough enough for whatever faced him in this god-forsaken place, or in the very least, tenacious enough. He’d never had the focus and commitment for school or work. There was no passion inside him, no excitement. His parents had always pointed this out to him and in retrospect, they were right. His resentment toward them was a defense mechanism. He would give anything to hear their voices now. “You still haven’t told me how to get out of here.”
“Place you were born. Know where that is?”
“Richmond Hill.”
“I mean the exact place, Tommy.”
He had to think a minute. His mother had showed him the birth certificate, crooning over the baby footprints. When the name popped into his mind, he spit it out before it could fade away.
“Fra
nklin Hospital in Nassau County! Hell, its’ probably less than fifty miles from here.”
Herb walked over to the counter again. The light was failing outside and his face was partially cloaked in shadow when he came back and handed him the menu. “You didn’t ask me what happened to the people who didn’t make it out of here.”
When Tommy looked down at the paper, there was a photo of the inside of the café they were sitting in. Couches and tables were empty except for a heavyset man seated alone in the far corner. He was rotund with curly, brown hair lining the bald crown of his head and was dressed formally in a suit with a matching vest. There was a smile on his face as he pointed to the mirror behind the counter. Tommy removed his glasses and looked closer.
It didn’t resemble a mirror but rather an enclosure, its occupants pressed up against the glass facing outward. The expressions on their faces, man, woman and child, were of pain and fear. As he stared at the photo, the seated man’s smile appeared to widen.
“Meet the Mayor,” Herb said.
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Stretching out his legs felt good and he sank deeper into the couch. He wasn’t tired, fatigue being another of the list of sensations absent from this realm. Herb had suggested he lie down and close his eyes to clear his mind, a meditation of sorts. It was a great idea. It’d also been explained that the trip to the hospital wouldn’t be easy as the sponge that was this Bad Place would be trying to suck him in. There were also the Brands to deal with and some fat guy called the Mayor. His army was a one eyed fighter and a giant Lab. He didn’t like the odds and the so called meditation time he was having, wasn’t doing anything to calm his nerves.
Darkness had fallen on the Bad Place, literally. There was no gradual transition from day to night and no sunset. It was daylight and then it wasn’t.
He opened his eyes not because he heard something but rather because he felt it. Herb and Midnight each occupied a couch and didn’t seem to notice. Their eyes were closed and their chests rose and fell as they breathed deeply. The pallets that made up the walls of this caffeinated fortress were in place. Yet, there were shadows in the café, most caused by the few street lamps that burned out on the sidewalk. There was one in particular that was inconsistent with the others, almost transparent and then became solid. As it approached, it grew larger and took the shape of a person.
It was tall, thin, with large hands but not like the freakish ones he had. The man’s brown hair swept down just above a pair of blue eyes. Tommy continued to look at himself, unable to tear his gaze away or move his limbs. He knew that this was himself from the Other, but didn’t know why he was afraid. When the other Tommy spoke, his lips didn’t move, and the words played inside his head while he lie there rather than passing through his ears. The voice was comforting, telling him to come back, to return to his family. He’d been in a car accident in the real world, induced into a coma to control the cranial bleeding. But now, it was time to return to the critical care unit where his parents and friends kept vigil. All he had to do was let go.
For the first time, there was no pain. He wanted to go back, be reunited with his family. There was a tingling sensation spreading throughout his body and the other Tommy began to glow, as bright as the sun. A cloud behind him was equally bright expanding across the room.
A flash passed his face and then, for a moment, there were only spots, sparkling like little stars before burning out. He could move again and when he removed his glasses, saw nothing. Eventually, his eyes focused and he could make out Midnight and Herb, standing above him. Herb was smiling when he held up a head, a Brand’s smooth head, and put it on his lap.
“They’re everywhere, kid. Good thing you had the glasses on. I didn’t know the Brands could change appearances and take on someone’s form like that. It became you and was pretty damn convincing.”
Midnight barked so loud and deep that a stack of tables fell over. His tongue swung back and forth like a pendulum as Tommy rubbed his head trying to get rid of the pain that had returned.
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They spoke little as they walked through town but the silence was a communication. Tommy gave up trying to rationalize the current situation, needing a respite from the effort. There was a goal and therefore hope. If the hospital was an egress from this place, then that was where he needed to be. Whether it was an actual escape or simply freedom from his mind, was irrelevant.
There was a sadness that stymied any good thoughts, a feeling that was almost numbing. He often perceived things as a dull grey, devoid of color and contrast. What would he be escaping to? His life in the Other wasn’t much of a life at all. He’d been given opportunity by his parents; opportunity that was squandered. After mediocre grades in high school, there was community college, but he’d quit before getting a degree. There was just no point in sitting in a room as someone droned on with information that he would never use. He wasn’t interested. The ordeal was a waste of his time and tuition dollars.
His father had gotten him a job at the local car dealer, movie theater, and hardware store. All reports from his superiors came back the same. Mr. Manning, you seem to lack the drive that we like to see in our employees.
They were right. Acting was not his strong suit and when he wasn’t interested in something, it showed. Not an asset for someone trying to find a career, who was disinterested in everything.
A dagger of pain stabbed the middle of his forehead and he was forced to stop. Leaning over, he worked his head with circular movements using the palm of his hand until he felt the pain subside.
When he stood up, Herb was staring at the ground. He spoke without looking up. “Head again?”
“Yeah, it comes and goes.”
When Herb looked at him, there was a vacancy in his gaze. “Where to?”
They’d been trying the few cars parked on the street with no luck. None had keys in them and although the movies made it look easy, hot-wiring was unsuccessful. They seemed dead anyway, the dome lights dark when their doors were opened. Herb had reminded him of the absorbent nature of the Bad Place where car batteries were like energy bars.
“There’s a car dealership a few blocks east on Hillside Avenue that I used to work at. Even if all the cars are dead, there are jump starters there that we could use.”
Herb pawed at his injured eye with a bloody glove. “We’ll have to be quick. That energy surge will be like a beacon. Your energy is like a GPS to our enemy as it is.”
Tommy looked down at Midnight. “What do you think, Moose?”
The dog gave a loud bark and stomped his paw down in affirmation. The impact caused the sidewalk to crack sending bits of concrete scattering. Herb chuckled.
They walked past the Hill Post Office where the bloated body of a postal worker hung from an upside down American flag, the Frosty Diner that was dark and smelled of rotted meat, and Soft Suds car wash. A Toyota sat on the tracks, its tires spinning slowly as the car and its dead driver were bathed in soap. Bubbles rose from the corpse’s mouth and ears as a cigarette dangled from the fingertips of a gray hand that hung out the window. If one could get past the horror, the human bubble maker inside his Japanese coach might be comical. Tommy couldn’t.
They reached the dealership to find most of the cars damaged beyond recognition. A Ford compact was on its side against a Honda SUV that was upside down. Strings of tattered flags, once colorful now drab, hung down from wood posts onto the gravel. A sign above the office door read ‘Bad Credit, No Worries-Bad Attitude-Big Worries.’ The mouth of the smiling man who was holding up a set of keys had been covered by an animal jawbone nailed into the sign. He seemed to move as parasitic insects scrambled across his face.
While Herb cleared the area, fists cocked and ready, Tommy walked directly to the rear of the establishment with Midnight and through the door marked ‘SERVICE.’ When things hadn’t panned out for him in sales during his brief employment there, he was transferred to this department where he cleaned and prepped the cars before they went out
into the lot. His time there was even shorter than his position in sales. There were jumpers in the garage, often used for cars that had weak batteries from sitting too long. He made his way through the small customer service area to the bays and found two of them standing in the corner behind rows of tires. Surprisingly, they were intact.
Two cars were on the lift, a green Dodge Stratus with a white passenger fender and a black Hummer. Smiling, he walked to the pegboard and found the Hummer’s keys that had a remote start. The service order sheet thankfully listed only a tune-up. He flipped the switch on the lift to lower the truck at the same time pressing the start button on the remote. There was the sound of hydraulics but nothing from the Hummer. When he opened the hood, the battery was there and looked to be the appropriate size for the vehicle. He hooked up the jumper cables, but when he turned on the starter, it hummed loudly and began to vibrate. The garage seemed to contort and then roll in waves like heat in the desert sun. The Hummer fired to life, dual tailpipes spitting exhaust. He’d just closed the hood when he heard the customer service door open and close as Herb entered.
Only it wasn’t Herb. The woman’s black hair had been shaved on one side, a sharp contrast to the thick tangle of hair on the other. Her eyes were glazed over deep in their sockets, the skin around them, puffy and blue. Chapped, scabby lips folded back from brown teeth. What must have been a nurse’s uniform at one time hung from her slight body, resembling a human hanger. Her one leg was bent unnaturally and she dragged it behind her as she shuffled forward. Parts of her dimmed, became transparent, and he could see through her at the shelves of oil cans. He felt Midnight tense up beside him.
“Please hide me. I can make you feel good, give you a zap, and I guarantee you’ll come back.” She winked and an eyeball fell out of its socket and rested on her cheek. A spark came from the fingertip that was pointed at him. “Hide me before it’s too late. I was helping them, you see; the old folk had nothing left, just bed pans and enemas in the future. I freed them but my supervisor didn’t understand. Hide me-“
9 Tales Told in the Dark 10 Page 12
