The Crossing Point

by August Arrea

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The brief moment of seriousness that had gathered like some dark storm cloud over the couple’s head instantly dissipated. Wray, who was seated tight- lipped looking like a devious cat who had just swallowed a canary, gave a breezy shrug. Even she couldn’t hide her own surprise of hearing the song—that song—suddenly being played. And then a moment later the cooing vibrato of Stevie Nicks’ unmistakable voice swept out into the still night like a gentle breeze.

  Jacob sat staring at Wray, a knowing smirk growing wider across his face.

  “There’s no way this is some weird coincidence,” he said with a slight chuckle as the familiar words of “Sanctuary” came out and found the couple like it always had the habit of doing.

  “What can I say? I happen to be friends with the DJ who just happens to share the same impeccable taste in music as I have,” said Wray. “That said, I had no idea you’d show up here tonight like you did. So the fact that this song is playing right now at this moment is not a coincidence.”

  He couldn’t argue with her. Nor did he when she reached over, took his hand into her’s and, despite her rule regarding pretty girls, asked quietly in that warm, honey-sweet voice of hers, “Dance with me?”

  “You don’t want to dance with me, trust me,” answered Jacob with a shy smile. “I would make Ty look like Fred Astaire.”

  “Please?” Wray insisted.

  “What about Yul? I doubt he’d like that too much.”

  “Would I have asked if I cared?” answered Wray.

  And in that moment neither did Jacob as he slowly got to his feet and followed her as she led the way to the gymnasium, her hand still clutching his. The instant they stepped through the glass doors, the song that had so subtly beckoned them inside guided them like a living chaperone through the crush of young teenagers swaying slowly in the dimly lit darkness to a spot near the center of the dance floor. There they turned to face one another and in a manner that was both noticeably self-conscious and bashful they paused before stiffly embracing.

  Jacob’s feet were immediately clumsy in their first steps to move with the music, stepping squarely on Wray’s delicate toes more than once. It was enough to make him want to flee and disappear into the cover of the crowd. Wray prevented such an escape by tightening her hold on him.

  “Just follow me,” she instructed with a reassuring softness.

  Jacob hesitantly surrendered to her lead and slowly Wray felt his body begin to relax against her own. What had felt so awkward one minute, quickly became comfortable, and soon the two were moving together in an easy sway as if they had spent a lifetime spinning their way across an endless ballroom. The embarrassment Jacob felt over standing out from his classmates in his grubby street clothes evaporated and the only awareness he was left with was the inviting flowery scent that drew his nose closer to Wray’s soft golden hair.

  Wray suddenly became conscious of Jacob’s hands moving downward across her back. She felt her breath catch in her chest as she waited for the inevitable to spoil what had been a pleasant moment. To her surprise, as well as hopeful expectation, Jacob’s hands traveled no further than her waist and came to a respectable and gentle rest at the small of her back.

  “What is it?” asked Jacob when he felt her release a deep breath.

  She shook her head and smiled. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  ~~~

  As they continued to dance, Jacob took a quick look around the darkened gymnasium. Nearby he spied Ty slow-dancing with his date, his eyes closed and a completely blissful look pasted on his face. Perhaps he had fallen asleep, Jacob thought while smiling to himself. His smile, though, quickly faded when he caught sight of Yul standing off by himself in the corner with two eyes blazing straight in his direction and looking none too happy at seeing Jacob and his date together as they were.

  What rooftop is he fantasizing about throwing me off now? Jacob thought to himself.

  He turned the focus of his gaze elsewhere, first to several teachers gathered together near a table lined with refreshments, then to a group of girls giggling secretly to themselves as they returned from a trip to the restroom. That’s when he caught sight of him, and the eyes reflecting flashes of gold from a dark corner where the silhouette of his body huddled unnoticed by anyone.

  Jacob caught sharply his breath.

  Gotham?

  “What is it?”

  He found Wray looking questionably at him.

  “Nothing…,” Jacob replied dismissively.

  He looked again in the direction of the figure, but to his surprise—or maybe not—it had vanished. Perhaps, he thought, he imagined it. After all, with everything that had happened that day—then again, what reason would Gotham have to be at a high school dance?

  “It’s nothing,” he repeated again. Only this time when he looked down into Wray’s face there was nothing capable of pulling his eyes away from her glowing face, even an angel. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I love this song.”

  Had she always been this beautiful, Jacob found himself wondering. And before either one knew what had happened, they kissed. A sweet, brief kiss, but one which felt fused by eternity.

  The song seemed to come up around them and cradle them in the quiet eye of some invisible storm; this melody that somehow found a way to make itself heard whenever Jacob and Wray were together; one which seemed destined to haunt them to their last breath. It was so that Jacob almost found it difficult not to believe Stevie Nicks herself wasn’t in the gym solely to sing her song about the sanctuary of fated love to the couple who didn’t even realize—or at least admit to one another before this night—the sanctuary of their own coupling. They kissed again, this time longer, all the while swaying together to the voice lulling them into a tighter embrace. And in that instant, Jacob found himself questioning the decision he made to leave the next day.

  There was never a more perfect moment; but a brief moment it was when suddenly the right side of Jacob’s head exploded with a burning, stabbing pain. His face instantly screwed itself up in a frozen look of agony. He knew even before he heard her voice that Mrs. Braukoff’s claw had latched itself onto his ear.

  “Not on my watch, Mr. Parrish!” he heard her say in her sugary-sweet voice while cruelly testing how pliable the cartilage in his ear was.

  The blinding pain pulled him out of the sanctuary that was Wray’s arms and guided him in stumbling steps backward across the gymnasium floor. Little did Jacob know it would be some time before he would ever see Wray Bliss’ face again.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Dancing Coins

  S

  aturday, Oct. 23

  So here goes my first entry.

  I’ve never kept a journal before, and I guess the only reason I’m starting now is because grandma gave this to me before I left and I know its importance to her. Or maybe it’s because my mind is on overload from so many thoughts that I’m hoping writing them down will help me sort through them and make sense of everything that is happening. I’m also bored out of my head, which is odd considering the fact we’ve arrived in Budapest of all places. Then again I’m tired. Exhausted actually. So much so I can barely keep my eyes open. One would think a trip like this would be an exciting adventure to a boy my age, but so far it has been anything but. I still haven’t the faintest clue as to where we’re going and the further we get from home the more anxious I find myself becoming.

  Despite not knowing exactly where we’re headed, I know enough of where we’ve been to realize our trip is taking far longer than it needs to. For whatever reason, we seem to be traveling by way of side roads and small towns, bypassing major cities and metropolitan areas unless it proves necessary. And only then it’s to dart quickly through an airport to catch a flight at the very last minute possible. If I didn’t know better, I would think I’ve been placed in the care of an escaped fugitive on the run from the law. This man Gotham—if I may even call him a man—prove
s to be more mysterious to me the longer I am with him.

  Before leaving the U.S., we found ourselves in a small town—a real rural, backwoods place that I would have normally insisted we push through without stopping had it not been for the fact that I was starving (Usually I have to chow down on something at least every three hours and it had been nearly twice that long, and I could hear my stomach growling with hunger). We found a small diner and stopped to eat. Well, I ate, at least. Since leaving Cain’s Corner I have yet to see Gotham eat anything. When I inquired about it, I was told simply angels don’t have a need for food.

  He’s not much for talking, but what he does say I find intriguing. We sat there in the booth in silence, like we had so far for most of the trip. And as I ate my burger I found myself looking at this “angel” (I use quotes because despite what I’ve seen I’m still not completely sure what to make of him). I found myself studying him, his clothes, his hair, his face. Especially his face. I could see how grandma could have fallen for him in her day. Aside from his obvious good looks, he has a certain inexplicable charm that seems almost spellbinding to women, including our waitress at the diner who couldn’t seem take her eyes off him and was reduced to speaking almost gibberish every time she came to the table. And yet at the same time I’ve noticed even the burliest of guys we’ve crossed paths with who happen to glance his way are quick to divert their eyes elsewhere as if intimidated. There’s a hardness to Gotham—a fierce coldness, actually—particularly in his eyes, despite their unusual gold color. I find myself wondering if it’s because I know he is fallen (at least, that’s what he refers to himself as), or if it’s always been there. Whatever the answer, I know instinctively he is not someone to be messed with by anyone. Maybe it’s because of that I find myself unable to see him as this thing—this “angel”—he claims to be.

  Anyways, as I was sitting there in the diner gorging myself on a greasy burger and fries while carefully studying him as he continued to stare quietly out the window next to our booth, he suddenly asked me, “And what exactly did you expect an angel to look like?” I was somewhat taken aback because at that moment I had found myself thinking just how unangelic he seemed to me. If anything, he’s what I would imagine a gladiator plucked from the Coliseum and dropped into present times in present-day clothes would look like. Or better yet, an actor to follow in the footsteps of Adrian Paul in a television reboot of “Highlander.” I shrugged, not knowing exactly how to answer while trying to swallow down the mouthful of food ballooning my mouth. I told him I’d always imagined angels in white robes with halos poised above their heads and playing harps. Well, I noted the lack of any sign of a halo positioned over his head, and I definitely couldn’t picture him strumming a harp, I told him.

  Tell me Jacob, he said, if you were the big man upstairs forming a celestial army, would it be one dressed in robes and armed with harps as you imagine? Or would you, instead, make sure to create the fiercest, most powerful warriors the heavens had ever bore witness to, a legion of merciless killers capable of protecting your throne from any enemy that dared to rise up against it?

  His query at once seemed to make perfect sense though I felt myself tremble slightly while imagining more like him—an army’s worth, in fact, of Gothams. Or perhaps it was due to that cold fierceness I described earlier of which I caught a fleeting glint in his eyes as he spoke. Whatever it was, I found myself during this rare moment of conversation between the two of us wanting to spew forth a flood of questions I had desperately wanted to ask him since we left Cain’s Corner. Like, what was God like? And what about Heaven? Was my mom there? What horrible thing did you do to cause your fall? But Gotham appeared distracted and I noticed his attention kept veering toward the window beside us that carried the greasy ketchup-smeared fingerprints of small children who had sat at our booth before us. I followed his icy gaze past the few cars filling the small parking lot outside and out toward the gas pumps located right off the two-lane highway we had been driving for such a long time. Parked nearby was a large truck—a total hick mobile, if there ever was one. Its bright yellow paint was splattered with dried mud that had been kicked up from the oversized tires, also caked thick with brown muck. Two middle-aged looking men were standing near the back of the truck talking. Gotham’s eyes were fixed on the two of them with an intense look I’m not sure I even have the word to even describe.

  He dug some money from his coat, tossed it on the table and asked me if I was through eating, and before I could answer he was already up and heading towards the door. He was halfway across the parking lot heading in the direction of the two men when I finally caught up to him. His manner of walking appeared easy and casual and yet somehow my legs were struggling to keep up with his pace without being forced to break into an easy jog. I tried to ask him what the matter was, but he didn’t answer. He just continued forward with his eyes fixed and his jaw tight. As we grew near, I noticed what looked to be a pair of hoofed legs sticking up from behind the tailgate of the truck along with what appeared to be the smooth, bare branches of a tree. As the men continued talking, Gotham brushed right past them without a word or glance and peered inside the bed of the truck.

  “Beautiful ain’t it?” the younger of the two men asked when he finally took notice of us. Gotham didn’t say a word at first. He just stood there, silent and still. Out of curiosity, I moved in closer and snuck a look at what had drawn Gotham out of the diner and across the parking lot in such a brisk fashion. It was the body of a big, healthy buck of a deer sprawled out lifeless in the back of the truck, its size so impressively large the truck bed was almost too small to contain it. What I thought had been the branches of a tree were in fact a spectacular set of giant antlers.

  “I said beautiful ain’t it,” the man asked again with the backwoods’ twang you’d expect to hear in this part of the country, and in movies marked by an eery chorus of notes plucked from a banjo. He was a good ‘ol boy from the dirt- stained trucker hat on his head and worn-out boots on his feet to the soggy wad of tobacco ballooning his bottom lip. His proud smile revealed an eagerness to hear the praise he expected to come from his prize. From the conversation I partially overheard him having with the other man, I assumed at first he was referring to the truck, which looked fairly new, or close to despite the splatter of caked-on mud, and was clearly the man's pride and joy. But it soon became clear he was referring to the limp carcass lying in the back.

  Gotham remained silent and then with a very solemn tone that was barely above a whisper I heard him reply, “Yes. It was.” There was a deep, noticeable sadness to his voice, and if I wasn’t able to glance into his face I would think he might shed a tear and possibly sob over this animal. But I was able to glance into his face, and what I saw made me want to warn the two men to take off running as quickly as their legs could carry them.

  The other man, who had stopped to fill up on gas and wandered over to admire the hunter’s kill, commented on how good eating the deer looked, which made the hunter chuckle arrogantly. “You don’t shoot a stag like this for eating,” he said.

  I noticed Gotham grow even darker, as if a shadow had passed over and settled itself above him. Why shoot it then? the man asked the hunter.

  The hunter brushed up beside Gotham and reaching inside the Jeep, grabbed an antler and lifted the limp deer’s head up off the floor for all to see.

  “You tell me how impressive this is going to look mounted above my fireplace,” the hunter replied. I looked into Gotham’s face and the growing contempt I saw past his flaming eyes was almost palpable.

  “And God wonders why his edict that we bow down before such creatures as man filled our mouths with the bile of contempt,” I heard him mutter to himself. He looked to the arsenal of guns laid piled beside the deer and reached for one. It wasn’t a hunting rifle, but a full on assault rifle—the kind you’d expect to see in the hands of an elite sniper in the military. Gotham asked the man if it was the gun he had used and the man released his hold o
f the deer’s head and took the gun in his hand. With the excitement of a child with a new toy, the man began reciting everything there was to know about the gun, from its fire power to the pin-point accuracy of its scope that allowed him drop an animal from a great distance without ever being seen, or even having his scent detected. And as he spoke, his pasty, tobacco-stuffed face lit up with an almost sick ecstasy from the inflated sense of pride and bravado which seemed to surge through the fingers gripping tight and caressing the body of the rifle. It was then, as the hunter went to show off another one of his numerous guns, that Gotham asked him pointedly if he had ever before engaged himself in a fair fight. It wasn’t so much a question as a snide assessment and one not lost on the hunter.

  “Excuse me?” asked the man as the smug smile he had been wearing slowly faded from his face.

  “As I suspected, even the premise is completely lost to someone like you,” Gotham said. “You stand here armed to the teeth with weapons no animal has any hope of fighting against, let alone outrunning, and you call it sport. What sport, I ask, pits two opponents against one another on unequal playing fields?”

  The hunter traded a dumbstruck look with his friend, as if to confirm his ears had actually heard the dressing down he’d just received from this stranger.

  “Are you for real?” asked the man turning back to Gotham. I nearly found myself breaking up at the irony of the question. “And just who do you think you’re talkin’ to, huh?”

  “A coward,” replied Gotham without missing a beat. “For only a truly weak, putrid excuse of a man would stand here and tell the outcome between a fly and flyswatter and then, in the same breath, crow that some great act of skill and strength had taken place. You, who hides behind a scope and camouflage, robbing from his unsuspecting opponent even the smallest dignity of seeing who would steal its last breath, only you would claim with such pride a trophy as this for your pitiful mantle in an attempt to depict your manhood.”