Miracles (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 3)

by J. Davis Henry

  “Bill, let’s not air dirty laundry.”

  “He’s on the run, huh? I know a place to hide.” I lit a cigarette, stared over my father’s shoulder, and hallucinated Charlie and his burro on a jungle path, seeing them in the minute details of paint strokes and bumps and stains of the green lobby wall.

  Teresa fidgeted, pinching and smoothing the creases of her dress nervously.

  “It’s a place of dreams, of murderers. The path is cold and wet, damp with a constant mist soaking past your clothes and moldy skin, chilling your soul. And when its not, it’s hot and wet. So hot, a snake’s blood steams. He’d belong there.”

  My eyes were hard as I shifted my gaze accusingly at Teresa. In that moment, I believed I had tried to purge myself of guilt by living a jungle nightmare for her. I resented having been a pawn on a path that had unraveled so ruthlessly.

  “Mountains and monsters teach you to beg for mercy.”

  My parents looked to the floor. Maureen looked to Teresa. Teresa looked about to cry.

  “Deets, don’t.” She reached her hand up to my sunken cheekbone, touched it tenderly.

  “Ezequiel cracked my face with his rifle.”

  “It’s all been so hard for you.”

  “I... I wanted to... I had a grenade...” My lips quivered, a spasm shook my chest, then tears burst past the medicinal crippling of my emotions. “I shot at Doctor Steel... Everything was trying to kill me—snakes, bugs, plants, soldiers, everything. Johnny’s beautiful head was blown apart. I had to drag dead bodies away to survive the night....”

  I sobbed, tried to breath.

  “And auh, auh,... I needed a gun... awh, I... auh,... chopped off the head of a viper, and auh... almost killed Charlie. A ghost with a machine gun was behind me... I would hold my breath for hours at night... ohh, just to be ready to kill.”

  I collapsed to my knees on the floor and lay my head in Teresa’s lap, crying like the universe wanted me to cry in order to pay for the violence I had summoned to survive.

  And I drooled and spluttered onto the softness of her thighs. Random, painful, incoherent memories shook forth as I cried for her and her dad, cried to bury myself in her, cried in confusion of how to tell her all that happened.

  I sniffled a farewell to my parents when they left with their hope crushed by pain and embarrassment and helplessness. Maureen sat still in sympathetic silence. Teresa ran her fingers through my hair. “Let it all out. You can always tell me. It’s all right. It’s all right. I’m here.”

  “Monkey Man, Fish Man, and your jaguar spirit guide helped me find the mountain, the hiding place of your heartache. That nightmare has another chapter, and I don’t know how to talk about your dad.”

  Teresa’s hand went still. I sniffed quietly.

  I sensed what was coming, didn’t want to tell her, hid behind an apology—“I wrecked your dress. It’s all wet.”

  “It’s fine.” But her demeanor told me she had been stung from the agony I had released upon her.

  I hid again, this time behind a half-whispered, moronic joke. “It looks like you peed yourself.”

  Across the room, Maureen pretended to smile but couldn’t disguise a grimace of pained embarrassment. Teresa hummed an affirmation, but she was distracted, trying to find a thread to tie together our time apart, her disappointments, the mental state of the man kneeling before her, and questions I had raised in her. The hardest one for me to answer would be the hardest for her to ask.

  Why is my father in your crazy ramblings?

  He wanted to send a message, you wanted to find him. But it was only possible by dream walking. I found a way to enter and connect you to him.

  She sat, outwardly quiet. But I could sense the past ten months jostling into a space that she had tried to erase. Without notice, there were strange men, other women, jungles, the dead, Monster Valley, untold mysteries, a mental hospital, all tagging along with me, trying to squeeze into her life.

  I closed my eyes. Her heat, her aroma, drew me into a place where I begged for her not to dismiss me.

  My lips lay against the fabric of her dress, tasting her.

  “Somehow, everything I said is true. It’s just a truth that doesn’t fit into this world anymore. I lived with jaguars following me, snakes in total darkness, my friend being murdered. His blood, and his murderer’s, stained my clothes and my mind. Fear taught me to be honest with myself. Or I’d die.”

  I took Teresa’s hand and held it to my heart, where the curandera had touched me, where Filomena had rammed her gun. “If not for you, I would have given up. Spirits, gods, demons, and shadows propelled me to survive. There were dreams to follow, and I needed you so I could understand how to take my next step, my next breath.” I raised my head. Partially hidden by her hair, the spotted cat earrings rocked slightly, as if my words stirred them. “And I love you for being there, along with all the others, when I needed help. But despite all the assistance, I was meant to pay a heavy price climbing that mountain. It was my trip—for me, for you, for the gods—I understand that. But I don’t know why Johnny had to die. It seems unfair. Maybe he sacrificed himself, so I would be forced to take the trail to find what I found.” Teresa’s fingers trembled, and I looked into the blue of her eyes, the feline blue of a jaguar high up in the Andes. “It wasn’t all hell. I discovered unimaginable secrets and wonders in those mountains.”

  Teresa gripped my hand tightly, raised it to her lips and whispered into our clasp, “It’s about the Alley, isn’t it?”

  “More.”

  “What is it, Deets? Why does violent mystery surround you?”

  I didn’t know the answer, but I heard a voice inside me that came from the Shadow Creature. You carry a light into darkness.

  I had to dredge up the courage to tell her about her father.

  “I found him.”

  She stiffened, slowly untangling her hand from mine, placing it at her side. “Who? What are you saying now?”

  A man dressed in white stepped into the room.

  “Visiting hours are up, folks. I’m sorry ladies, I’ve already let you stay a half-hour past the limit.” The orderly stood in the doorway, holding it open for Teresa and Maureen. “I’ll escort you out.”

  “C’mon Barry, a few more minutes.”

  “Nope, sorry. Now.”

  “Teresa, go to that record shop near that park that runs down from Houston near the Bowery. The Indigo Swan, or Duck, or some kind of floating bird. On the bulletin board, if it’s still there, I left a picture for you. It’s orange and faded and wrinkled. You’ll know which one.”

  “What is it?” She looked doubtful, a person remembering that I stalked and photographed alleys for clues to mysterious happenings, that I entangled myself into situations that had threatened our lives and busted up our relationship.

  “I’m just too bent out of shape to talk about it now. It would only hurt and confuse us. It’ll be hard for you to believe, especially from a crazy man rambling on about all sorts of bizarre stuff. Just go look at it first. Then if you want to know more, it’ll be easier to tell you the story, and you’ll know it’s not just a spaced-out mental patient talking to you.”

  “That’s not how I feel.” But she ducked her head slightly with a quick sideways glance to escape her misgivings.

  Maureen stepped in and hugged me goodbye. She whispered, “Stay cool, Deets.”

  Teresa seemed disoriented, her thoughts trying to focus on a life that might include me again.

  “Teresa.” Had I said her name in demand or in supplication?

  But she smiled sadly, then leaned into me. The familiar, caressing light from my childhood cocoon, the one that protected me from fever and pain, flooded over me as she kissed my cheek softly.

  When I returned to my room, I touched my face gingerly, cherishing the afterglow warmth of her lips.

>   “It looks like those scars are fading, Deets. Especially where that young lady showed her affection. Yes sir, you’re going to be all right. You get out of here, you’ll be all right.” Barry laughed. “It sure is a good thing to see. Lord knows it’s a good thing.”

  Chapter 3

  Night in the jungle

  I caught a moment with the stars

  And whispered your name

  Teresa

  You’re a prayer

  To purge the things creeping upon me

  But I had forgotten

  Your touch

  You’re a hope

  At the edge of dreams

  Where I had to climb

  Past terror to reach

  When you came to me today

  The heat of those far off blazing suns

  Of the night

  Finally found me

  If you never let go of me then I am free

  I mailed the poem and waited, watching the bug on the ceiling. I wondered about the time when Teresa had seemed to be with me on the mountain. Wondered if she was with another man now. Wondered why I hadn’t just told her about her dad. Wondered if Clyde had given her the black stone feather.

  A week went by before Barry handed me a lilac-colored envelope.

  Deets,

  We’ve always been able to reach deep into each other. Is it possible for love to be so intense one can’t exist in it? Sometimes I am so frightened to discover parts of myself that you reveal.

  I have the photograph. To me, it’s miraculous how you physically located my life’s despair and replaced it with hope. After I retrieved the picture, I couldn’t sleep and spent the entire night in disbelief studying him. He looks a wreck. I am worried for him but relieved and grateful to know a little bit more about my dad. Looking at him, I relive the horror of his leaving a dead man outside my room, remember with happiness the tenderness he was capable of, and need to hear your story of how you got the photograph. Don’t hold anything back. Society has locked you away, but I haven’t. I go through towering waves of ecstasy at the thought of what you achieved, am saddened by the horror you obviously lived through, and am totally mystified by why things happen. Did we break up so you could find my dad?

  There is much for us to talk about. I should be finishing up the last painting for a show soon, then I’ll come and visit.

  Love,

  Teresa

  But she never came to see me. Another week passed.

  I located Good Stuff’s phone number. When I asked for permission to call the store, I was informed that I didn’t have phone privilege.

  “Why not?”

  The nurse on duty answered with a distinctly dismissive sneer. “You’ll have to ask the doctor.” She stood to file a stack of pink forms.

  “Ask a doctor to use a phone? Do you know what I had to go through to get here so you could take away my privileges. Fuck this.” And I reached across her desk, dragged the phone towards me.

  “Oh no, Mister Parker.” She maneuvered around the file cabinet, squeezed past the corner of the desk, and placed a mammoth paw over my hand. “Let go of the phone.”

  Nurse Pumpkin had the rather odd, snickered-at misfortune of looking like the vegetable of her family name. She was a round but solid woman with orange hair, maybe a head taller and eighteen inches wider than most everyone she had ever met. We bounced against each other struggling for the phone. She yanked the handset from me and pinned me against the desk with her hip. Trying to work myself free, my head became wedged up against her tits, and I knew immediately that she was concentrating on maintaining the sexually-charged contact with my face, rather than moving the phone out of my reach.

  I grabbed at the cord. A stiff pointy bra stabbed briefly into my ear.

  When we finally broke free, I held the receiver in my hand again. “C’mon, Nurse Pumpkin, just a phone call.”

  She adjusted her beehive hairdo, tugged down her tight uniform that had hiked up on her thighs. “You shouldn’t be so rough. I could report you if you try anything like that again.”

  I shrugged. “Like what? I wanted the phone. You grabbed at my hand.”

  She pouted, shifted her shoulders to wriggle her bra into a more comfortable position. She checked the top button of her uniform with a sidelong look at me. “You’re not much of a gentleman.”

  “I’ll send flowers next time. One call.”

  Returning to her filing, she sniffed and ignored me.

  I sat in a chair, telephone on my lap, worrying that Teresa had changed her mind about wanting to see me. “When am I getting out of here?”

  “You’ll have to ask the doctor.” She looked into the open cabinet, fingered through some files, then snipped at me, “The doctor spoke to your parents after their last visit. Apparently you were upset. You’re not to have visitors or contact with anyone until you’ve recovered from your latest relapse.”

  “Relapse? Oh this is one great plan of sanity. I finally find some emotion through that mental plug you call medication, and I get punished.”

  “Make your phone call. Then get out of here. I’m busy.” She said it as if I had taken advantage of her, and I would never be able to indulge myself with her again.

  “Could I have some privacy?”

  “I’ll be back in two minutes.”

  “Teresa.”

  “Deets, what’s happening? No one will let me visit or talk with you on the phone. They told me not even to bother writing. Did you get my letter?”

  “Yes, but this must be Gestapo headquarters. Apparently emotional honesty is a bad, bad thing.”

  “Get out of there, Deets.”

  “Okay, can you drive the getaway car?”

  She giggled. “I know what happens when you set your mind on something.”

  “What?”

  “You find...” She was silent for a long moment. “You find lost pieces of people’s souls.”

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s me. It’s like the gods are shooting pool. Let’s say each ball is a dream, but maybe the cue ball is like a wish or a longing or a prayer that’s been heard. The dreams go ricocheting around, bumping and glancing off one another, rolling everywhere until finally the aimed-for result falls into a pocket safely. The shot was perfect despite the seeming chaos. Somebody’s racked up a bunch of dreams and is playing with them in my head. The dream of your dad being found finally sunk into a pocket.”

  “How did you know who he was?”

  “He helped me when I was in a bad way. We were on a mountain path and he mentioned your ‘Abracadabra and kisses too’ thing he used to say to you.”

  “That chokes me up. It’s too overwhelming. I’m afraid and anxious at the same time to hear about my dad. I didn’t know who you meant you found—that day I visited.”

  Nurse Pumpkin pushed the office door open, thumped her knuckles against the desk. “Hang up, Parker.”

  “Don’t say anything about my dad in front of someone else.”

  “Right.”

  “You followed dreams? Not rumors and physical clues?”

  “Well, not consciously, but it’s one of a billion ways to explain what happened. Hey, I gotta go. Don’t want to. Bad timing. I’ll call again.”

  “Okay, I’ve got a phone in the apartment now. Same number except a nine instead of an eight. Bye, take care of yourself.”

  Chapter 4

  I listened to underground radio, catching up on music that I’d never heard before, beginning to understand the change that was gathering momentum in the culture over the last five months. The voice of dope-smoking heads and acid freaks was evident in more and more rock groups. Anti-war messages and protests had become commonplace. The philosophy of loving everything and everyone, along with insightful poetry, surreal nonsense, and an emphatic anti-establishment s
tance wasn’t just the province of artists, poets, and musicians anymore. An ever-widening blossom of stoned-out, young people were trying to convey change in the power structure of America. There had been a concert in California where Rolly was part of a lineup of musical groups that electrified the crowd. People had bonded, flooded into San Francisco, partying, tripping, declaring themselves to be part of a better vision for the world than what we had been offered.

  I felt left out. I had been carrying a rifle and running for my life while people gathered together at Haight Ashbury to fuck and play and get high. The deejay would mention a band, or a song, or talk of some event, and it was all new to me. I soaked in the information and consoled my feelings of separation with the thought that although I hadn’t joined the summerlong happening, I had lived through a life-changing experience. I had fought for survival and been rewarded—discovering the power of dreams, the reality of magic, and being introduced to the feast of the gods by Pan himself. I knew, without a doubt, the gods existed. And divine tunnels. The Andes hadn’t been a party, but returning home with the intrigue and wonder of the gods’ secret passages, and being able to access them with a wave and flourish of my hand, had given me rare knowledge that would always shape me—I felt chosen.

  A giggle in my throat burst into loud laughter. “I’m laying in a bed in a mental hospital thinking I’m something special to the gods. Ha, ha.”

  I heard a commotion in the hall as an orderly escorted someone past my door. “You tell that confused bastard it ain’t all about a pussy vacation climbing some fucking mountain. It’s all a shambles and clogged up. I don’t even belong here.”

  “How did you get on this floor? C’mon Mister Jump, back upstairs.”

  “Who knows where I came from? Someone’s got to put infinity back together again. Goddamn it. I tell you I don’t belong here. Lost boots usually end up on some planet where no one has feet. Lost souls got to keep looking.”