I began to recognize the regular denizens viewed from my window. Men in high heels, ruffled shirts, and tight pants hung out on street corners, getting into cars that slowly cruised the area. Short-skirted streetwalkers had me guessing if they were male or female. Strutting or posing with a pout, the natives complained or fought with the competition of the begging boys who slept in a nearby park. Cops shoved men into squad cars at all hours of the day and night.
One evening, I watched as two police cars blocked off a section of the street and bludgeoned a young man as they dragged him from a nightclub. A crowd from the homosexual bar followed them outside, mixing curses with threats. A beer bottle crashed against the hood of the squad car, another struck an officer. Dispatch radios squawked. A charge of men rocked the cruiser and pulled the blood-covered man free while more police arrived. Three more young men fell to the sidewalk, crumbling beneath nightsticks. Alcohol splashed from a dozen bottles hurled by the angry men before they retreated and scattered. Profanities and crying sounded from hidden areas, echoing across the emptied street where six policemen stood anxiously tapping their thighs or palms with nightsticks.
Ray pounded on my door, and we went up to the roof to survey the situation and see if we could spot any of his friends. But our eyes were drawn far off to the south where a half dozen buildings were lighting the sky with fire. Fire engines and police sirens screamed in the distance.
“Everybody’s rioting. The establishment’s going down. That’s gotta be the Negroes.”
“Yeah, I heard Boston and Detroit just blew too.”
Chapter 28
The large drawing progressed slowly. I spent a good amount of each day jumping on and off buses and traveling across the city, posting and handing out flyers of Sam’s image.
The incredible coincidence of meeting my father on the Connecticut turnpike, the threat of execution in the Andean jungles, and then the miracle of locating Teresa’s dad caused me to acknowledge that I had been a coward about facing my responsibility towards my child. After I was pulled from the Ohio River and Doctor Steel and Amelia revealed my destiny to be to locate and repair a tunnel of the gods, I still needed to continue on, trying to accomplish my more earthly goals.
But, at every turn, there were circumstances that took me through a lunatic’s maze to advance progress in any of my quests.
I was daydreaming, riding on a bus, thinking about an offer Ray had made me to use my room to shoot some pornographic films. He had promised that every one of the actresses would gladly spend some extracurricular time with me. All I had to do was choose who, whenever I wanted.
My focus came around to find I was the only white face on the bus, now full of black people, with a good portion of them staring hard at me. The smell of wet ashes filled my nostrils. The breathing of a man sitting nearby sounded like gunshots. Having crossed inadvertently into a neighborhood full of rage, I found myself wishing for a Maisie from Memphis among the commuters.
The seat next to me was empty. A few people stood in the aisle rather than sit with me. I stood up and offered them to take my seat. An old man’s bloodshot, tired eyes accused my gesture of being hollow. Although he didn’t shake his head negatively, I sensed his spirit doing so. A young guy, about my age, pushed past the man and sneered at me. I could feel the heat of hate emanating from him. A quick flip of his wrist revealed a thin sharp knife in his hand. I stepped back. He leaned over and ripped a slit in the seat where I had been. Then with another slash, he cut a large X across the seat cover, as if to exorcise any of my presence that might have lingered on it. The old man shuffled past him, sharing a look of acknowledgment, and sat on the damaged seat. A woman holding a child’s hand and embracing a grocery bag arranged herself to sit next to the old man. As she bent her knees and lowered her body, the bus braked hard, swerved, then lurched forward in a fast jerk.
The woman’s groceries spilled onto the old man, and the child fell away from his mother’s grasp. His head bounced off the thin cushion, his nose slammed against the seat’s metal tubing, and he fell unchecked to the bus floor, his knees taking the brunt of the fall. The driver stepped on the gas, inadvertently propelling the child into another tumble. Once, twice, three times the kid bounced, finally coming to a stop when he bumped into my shoes.
The little boy had been silent, the disastrous fall having happened too fast for him to fill his lungs and cry. But when he came to a stop at my Hush Puppies, his eyes opened wide, met mine, and his wailing became a sound that had a life of its own. It filled the bus, causing everyone to turn and witness a Negro child howling in fear and pain at my feet. A bus full of eyes blamed me for not only murdering Doctor King, but for scaring young children with my history and skin.
The boy’s mother hadn’t recovered from her own stumble and loss of balance, so I knelt and helped the child up, instinctively wrapping my arms around him, making soft sounds to soothe his trauma.
The mother straightened up from her mishap and, with a horrified glance at me, moved towards her child. A hand stopped her. It was the old-timer, holding her back. The young hood with the knife flipped the blade lightly in his palm, confidently measuring his grip.
I stood, lifting the child into my arms while the worried eyes of the mother looked on.
The knifeman placed himself between us, his feet planted wide, still playing with the weapon in his hand.
I tried to ignore him, feeling the greater importance was to return the child to his anxious mother.
“Put him down.” The knifeman’s gruff voice was a command.
“Huh?”
“I said, honky, put him down. Let him walk like a man.”
I got off at the next stop and so did Knifeman. One of the passengers laughed cruelly and shook his head like he was mocking any misconception I might have had about making it through the surrounding neighborhood alive.
I survived that damn jungle. Just walk, be alert.
Two blocks down, I saw the mother of the child, clutching his hand, hefting the grocery bag on her hip. As I walked, acting like the stares and wisecracks directed at me didn’t mean a thing, she stood still, watching me, an arrogant twist on her lips that mirrored itself in her stance. Two thoughts overwhelmed me with relief—she was waiting for me, and I hadn’t noticed earlier that her blouse was a jaguar pattern of brown and yellow spots. When I neared her, I realized that her eyes, free from the panic on the bus, were a soft green with a slight Eastern Asian slant.
She looks like a cat.
“What are you doing here?” She said it angrily, like she wanted me to disappear.
“I’m looking for this woman.” I showed her Sam’s flyer.
“That pixie. She don’t live around here. Why’re you looking for her?”
“She’s the mother of my child. Or at least, I think so.”
“What do you mean, you think so?”
“I’ve never met my son. I’m trying to find him through her, I don’t know where they are.”
“Well, ain’t you something. Most men run.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“You’re not even going to live to see your child if you don’t get smart. That badass back on the bus with the knife—he’s been following you.” She grabbed the flyer and stuffed it in her grocery bag. “This your phone number?”
“I can be contacted there.”
Knifeman sauntered up close to the two of us. “Momma, am I seeing things here? Some of it, has no business here. The rest of what I see, I really like.”
The green-eyed cat woman hissed at him, “All the years I’ve known you, you ain’t never been able to see straight.”
“Oh, I see all right. I see clear enough to know you could make me go blind. It’s okay. It’s okay. I don’t need eyes for what I’m imagining.”
She laughed with a scoff, then exchanged an uncomfortable look with me.
Knifeman pointed at me off-handedly. “Talking about blind.”
I started to step away.
He grabbed my forearm quickly with both hands and swung me off balance, slamming me against a wall. The flyers flipped up over his head and scattered into a hundred sheets, slipping and sliding across the sidewalk.
Knifeman pulled me into a recessed doorway. A doorknob pressed hard against my spine.
Cat Woman slapped at one of his arms. “Let him go. He just has to walk another two blocks, and he’s on a bus out of here.”
Knifeman shoved her away, pulled his knife. “Yeah, and get off where everybody’s pink and blonde.” He jerked his arm back slightly. I knew he was going to drive it forward, straight into my stomach.
Cat Woman screamed.
The door behind me jerked open, I tumbled backwards, and a black-furred, snarling dog charged between my legs, knocking me against the doorjamb as I spilled into a small foyer. My arms thrashed helplessly as I went down.
Knifeman reacted quickly, kicking at the animal, then lunging with the knife. A sickle of red appeared on the dog’s neck, stopping the attack immediately. It yelped, then coughed and staggered. It’s eyes rolled in fear. Knifeman’s weapon slipped from the fur, and he drew back to stab the dog again. My dog. My black dog. My dream companion.
I lay on my back, trying to right myself, but in the middle of doing so, a blue ray of light flew from my right hand, striking knifeman’s shoulder. The knife clattered to the ground.
His eyes widened, and his tongue hung slack from his mouth as he slowly fingered a smoking hole in his shirt.
“What the fuck? How the fuck?” Stunned, his legs crumbled beneath him.
Cat Woman whispered, “Oh, Jesus, dear lord.”
Her son cried, “Mommy, the doggie has boo-boo.”
I sat up and cradled the dog in my arms. The sun was shining in the doorway where the dog’s head lay. Her blood glistened in the light.
Groceries littered the sidewalk. An orange juice bottle had cracked, a dozen eggs wobbled or lay split open on thin piles of Sam’s printed image.
Cat Woman fell to her knees, cracking another egg.
Behind me, I sensed shadows deep inside the room I had crashed into.
Shadows.
Where was my teacher from the ancient darkness? The dog was going to die without its help. She had slumped onto her side, panting rapidly, eyes glazing as she searched my face. Her spirit was slipping away as I searched my memories of healings with white feathers or pandas or pitch-black nothingness. I needed directions on what to do.
I pleaded to the emptiness and hopelessness I felt inside me. “Why, why are you letting this happen? I need you to help.”
“It’s your turn to shine.” The voice reverberated from a place of non-existence I knew to be the Shadow Creature’s domain.
I placed my hand on the animal’s wounded neck, blood seeping over my fingers. I could feel the source of life, of energy, of eternity, flood up and into my hand. Creatures laughing with the joy of play and companionship filled my head. A chorus of crying, mourning losses and misunderstandings, passed through my heart. A myriad—a billion, trillion myriads—of blue sparks, as bright as eternity’s combined light, exploded behind my eyes.
Voices infiltrated my consciousness.
“What’s he doing?”
“That dog’s dying.”
“Who is he?”
A blurry Knifeman lay half-crumpled against the exterior wall. He wailed, “Pray, you fools. Don’t you understand?”
When my perceptions returned fully to take in my physical surroundings, I saw the bleeding had clotted, and the slit in the dog’s flesh was zipping itself together. The canine’s eyes cleared, and she lifted her head, sliding her tongue gently against my fingers. I touched the scar on my own neck, closed my eyes in wondrous acceptance of what had just transpired. I didn’t understand anything about the mysteries of the universe, but with the touch of my hand, the dog’s wounds had evaporated. I could have floated away, light as I felt at that moment.
“Mommy, the doggie’s boo-boo all gone.”
“I know, Thomas.”
Opening my eyes, it took me a moment to comprehend why Cat Woman, Knifeman, and half a dozen people behind them were looking awestruck.
“He healed the dog.” Cat woman gathered Thomas into her arms.
Knifeman was holding his shoulder. “You, you. I never believed. Forgive me.”
A woman bellowed, “Hallelujah.”
Another cried, “It’s a miracle. Dear Lord, a miracle.”
More voices stirred on the sidewalk.
“I saw it. It was like the Lord and Lazarus.”
“Some white guy laid his hands on a dog.”
“He must be an angel.”
Others muttered in disbelief.
“It’s just a dog.”
“Charlatan.”
“Go on, it’s just an act.”
The black dog stood and, wagging its tail, made her way into the small crowd that had gathered, barking along with the growing chorus of exclamations.
I remembered the Shadow Creature at Saint Rose’s Rehabilitation Center telling me I should leave. Thinking the ongoing situation was similar to the miracle with Betsy, I inched slowly away from the impromptu singing, the bewildered expressions, the reverential looks of hope, Knifeman’s smoldering shirt, and Cat Woman’s thankful, smiling eyes.
I nodded at Cat Woman and Thomas, mouthed, “See you,” then scrambled down a hallway, through a living room, and across a dining area to find an old woman in a wheelchair peeling potatoes at a kitchen table.
“Excuse me, sorry to barge through here. Don’t mean any harm, but I’m in a hurry.”
“You the cause of all that startlement at my front door? People yelling about a miracle?”
“Yup.”
“I guess the dog’s mighty grateful.”
“She seems happy.”
“I suppose you don’t really have time to chat with those folks.”
“I don’t know what I’d say. It’s hard to explain.”
“I guess you stay pretty busy, what with all the problems need fixing.”
“It’s not like that. I don’t know how it happens or when.”
“No, not much ever really gets fixed. Piss poor performance. You tell your boss I said that.”
“I, uh... Okay. What’s the dog’s name?”
“Why, I call him Shadow, but I don’t really know. The mutt just showed up at my back door this morning. I fed it, and it made itself at home, just sitting and staring at that front door all day.” She rolled her chair closer to me. “I had a feeling, y’know. Just let it be, I told myself. Dog kind of looked at me to say it got a job to do but won’t be hanging around too long.”
I heard Knifeman in the living room. “Dude just disappeared.”
“Best you run along if you can’t deliver those folks a miracle on command. Best you skedaddle if someone else expecting you.”
I hesitated, then placed my hand on the back door’s knob.
She pointed her potato peeler at me. “I don’t understand why you spirits just can’t stick around and help out, like Doctor King. He tried to stay with us, fought hard to, but it seems like it’s against the rules.”
“I’m not... I don’t... People get hurt around me.”
The old woman rolled her chair towards me until the foot rests bumped my shins. She poked the peeler at my stomach. “Most people are dead before they come alive as spirit. You, you can’t make up your mind, leaving all sorts of false hope to us lingering on, doing the hard work, waiting and praying for something better.”
Knifeman appeared at the kitchen door. “The dog’s gone. One minute she’s barking and being social, then next moment no one can find her.” A crowd of about twenty pe
ople were filling up the dining room space behind Knifeman. “Who are you? Are you an angel?”
Everyone fell silent, waiting for my answer.
“I’m just a person. Name’s Deets.”
Cat Woman stepped forward, squatted down by the old woman. “Maybe he can help you walk again, Mother Abel.”
Walk again? Wait. You got it all wrong.
“No, don’t you understand? It wasn’t me. The whole crisis with the dog was planned in some dream or something. I don’t know how they do it.”
Cat Woman looked up at me, hope and disbelief clashing within her, and damn me over again if in that moment I wasn’t distracted by her disheveled blouse revealing most of one of her tits. Then my eyes flicked to the space between her legs exposed by her hiked-up skirt. She pretended not to notice my inopportune interest.
But not Mother Abel. She snapped, “Get up girl. Don’t you see he’s no decent man?” She grabbed a potato and threw it at me, smacking my forehead. “The dog’s always been the symbol of the beast. Lust and blood and lies. You get out of my home, demon dog-man.”
“Mother, don’t.” Cat Woman grabbed for my hand.
Knifeman stepped across the kitchen, pushing at Cat Woman. “Get him out of here before all hellfire breaks out again.” He turned to the old woman, poked a finger through the hole in his shirt. “Mother Abel, don’t get that man mad. Look at this.” He wiggled his finger. “He’s got a power you don’t want bursting out at you.”
“Demon power.” And she sailed two more russets at me, one beaning me on my forehead again.
Cat Woman held Thomas with one hand, me with the other, and hurried us out the door as Knifeman dodged another flying spud. With one final glance back, I saw someone in the crowd waving one of the flyers. “This girl, who is she? This your phone number?”
Holy shit, what a strange mess I just stepped in.
Chapter 29
Outside, we crossed a small gated yard into an alley where three tough-looking black guys stood, passing around a joint. They turned red-blotted eyes in our direction.
Miracles (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 3) Page 17
