Sins of the Flash

by David Niall Wilson

  Christian sat back and pulled his thoughts into the present. He watched the dancers on the very corner of the dance floor; the only portion visible from his booth, waited for his drink and continued thinking. There had to be a way. Destiny would not be denied, and he was destined to greatness. The quick flash of the waitress’ beauty had revitalized his creative energy.

  The meeting with Gates had been a disappointment. Christian had thought that they understood one another. Gates always showed a genuine appreciation for Christian’s work and an understanding of what made him unique. It was obvious now that it had either been an act to get at more of Christian's money, or that it didn't go as deeply as Christian had imagined. That was going to have to change.

  His drink arrived, and he smiled at the waitress, accepting the drink and paying for it with a bill large enough to be certain she would have to return to the bar for change. He enjoyed watching her move, the play of muscles down the back of her thighs, the way the lights danced on the snowy whiteness of her hair. Very entertaining. He pictured it as a series of photos that would capture each angle, the way she turned gracefully between tables, the way she leaned forward over the bar to place his order, lifting her skirt in back as she stretched.

  He returned to his inner image of her and he filled in more stolen details. He felt himself stiffening beneath the table, and he let one hand stray to his crotch. He rubbed himself idly for a moment, and then let the image free once more. He would have to stand up and walk to get out of the club, and the girl would return in a moment with his change. The last thing he wanted was to be caught touching himself in public.

  To clear his mind and calm himself, he drifted back through the day to the two kids that hung out near his home, and to the momentary vision he'd received from the door of the corner market. So many intense visions in a single day had to be a sign.

  He deliberately pushed aside memories of the boy and his callous remarks; it was the girl who interested him. The colors in her hair had showed a talent, a hidden artistic ability that the child was no doubt ignorant of herself. She probably thought she’d just picked the shades at random, but Christian knew better. They were perfectly cascaded, clashing just enough with her clothing and each other to bring about a subtly pleasing effect. She had probably spent a lot of time in trying to make her hair look as if she’d spent no time on it.

  He admired her for it. He admired her for other things, as well. She was a masterpiece in the making, a girl who would break hearts, probably starting with that of the young punk who so arrogantly flashed her about like she was nothing more than an accessory to his own outfit. It was inevitable; that's what women did.

  He compared the two visions, the young girl, the slightly older, more experienced waitress. One with the glitter and flash of youth, a vitality that couldn't be quenched, the other with grace that was maturing, with endowments the younger girl would only be dreaming of for several years to come. It was a pleasant contrast, but the younger image slowly won out as his favorite of the day.

  Except that it wasn’t. He thought of the girl, Dorinda, the submission in her eyes and the pliancy in her form, and the beaten expression of the mother close enough beside her to use as a palette of pain to highlight the rough spots. The girl on the corner, even with her beautiful hair, and the waitress bouncing jauntily across the dance floor, were full of life, and life was about decisions. As long as those decisions did not belong to Christian, the models could not be trusted. He thought, given enough time alone with her, that Dorinda would give him that control. He wondered how it would feel just to take it.

  When the waitress returned, he took his change and watched her walk away for the final time. His head was already fuzzy, and he had another scotch to get through before leaving. Having paid money for it, no way would he leave it there untouched. It would be a waste, and nothing he'd earned would ever be wasted. There would be no more drinks after this one, though, not in Big Sid’s.

  The dance floor was a blur of motion, and the smoke irritated his eyes. The music was muted where he sat, but still soothing. There was something special about the beating of those drums, something almost hypnotic. The whiskey pumped through his bloodstream, and he fought to maintain his senses as he rose, downing the last of it in a gulp.

  Music hadn't played a large part in Christian's life. It was art, and he recognized the beauty in it, but it was distracting. The wrong music was more than distracting. It was dangerous. It could bring memories he'd rather not be put through again. Memories of his mother, the music she played for her men, for a lot of men. The special music she'd played for Christian himself.

  He rose too quickly, stumbled through the tables and around the bar, and skirted the dance floor carefully, avoiding all eye contact. Suddenly the pleasant images of the day were gone, and the music was dredging up the wrong images. He needed to get out.

  He didn't want anyone to take notice of him. They would know he was drunk, and that in this state he was weakened. Someone would see the opportunity, would want whatever he might have, and would take advantage of that knowledge. His head pounded, and he regretted gulping the whiskey. It was affecting his vision, and he knew the harder he tried to ignore the music and focus on placing one foot in front of the other, the more likely he was to tumble face first into someone’s drink.

  Christian glanced at the dancers on the floor and was struck by how young they seemed. Some of the couples gyrating across the polished wood appeared to be no older than the two that hung out on his street corner, and he was certain that those two weren't old enough to drink. He'd seen them on more than one occasion trying to talk a wino, or a passing adult that looked promising, into going into the market to buy them alcohol. Was he so old that he couldn’t tell the difference?

  He cracked his shin several times, and nearly tripped over the frame of the door on his way through, but at last he made it back to the street. He breathed the cool, fresh night air and walked slowly toward the back, where he'd parked his car. He'd left it just around the corner, directly between the pole for one of the incandescent lights and a dumpster. It was a brightly lit spot, and it was visible from the street. No sense in supplying the enemy with cover.

  He made it to the car without incident and slid in behind the wheel. He sat for a few moments, trying to reorient himself to the outside world, to erase the echoing beat of the drums and the flashing, swirling negative flashes of colored light.

  He closed his eyes, and his mother’s face played against the screen of his eyelids. Her lips were blood red and her eyes were shaded in deep, dark purple. She laughed at him, and he pressed the memory back, flattening it against the inside of his skull and denying it access to the present.

  He drowned that leering face in memories of the day and lost himself in the sensations they created. He saw the waitress’ smile, the tilt of her head, and the swirl of her skirt as she turned and walked away. Her perfume seemed permanently embedded in his nostrils. His hand strayed again, but he caught himself and snapped it up to the wheel. It was time to get home.

  He turned the ignition key and the sound of the engine brought him the rest of the way back to his senses. Now he knew where he was, and that he was drunk. It was not good, but it was better. Damn. He made a mental note to never drink scotch in a public place again, and backed slowly out of the parking place.

  He drove ten miles per hour below the speed limit, his heart trip-hammering at each flash of a light. He was certain that he would be stopped, handcuffed and arrested, but he made it home without incident. By the time he pulled into his small cubby-hole of a garage and pushed the shift lever into park, he was wide-awake and feeling very sober from the tension. He slipped quickly from the car and into his apartment, praying nobody would see him, and not certain why.

  The bottle of wine was waiting for him, and he poured a glass gratefully, tossing back half of it and sitting at the table. The paper was still where he’d left it; the model's perfect smile gleamed up at him, and
he stared at her in longing.

  "Soon," he promised, standing and walking to the utility drawer by the sink for his scissors. He came back, clipped the woman's photo from the ad and carefully taped it to the wall of the apartment next to some of his newer work. Smiling at his handiwork, he poured another glass of wine and sat down to admire it.

  The alcohol quickly fogged his thoughts, removing the evening's disappointment, and he drifted. Finally he rose, stoppered the wine bottle and set it on the counter, then headed off to bed. Tomorrow would arrive soon enough, and there were plans to be made. It was going to be a very, very interesting day.

  On the wall, the woman's smiling eyes watched him as he left the room.

  FOUR

  The next day at the studio was a nightmare of boredom and insults. A seemingly endless stream of flaccid, horse-faced children and an entire family of twelve identical morons who wanted portraits assaulted Christian.

  It seemed that "Cousin Earl and Aunt Ida were just in from Texas, and Beau here, he's headin' to the Army soon, so we figgered we'd better get the whole bunch down on film while they was here." Christ.

  Somehow he managed to meet each and every challenge, even finding a way to sell the family an extra set of 8 X 10's for "the folks back home in Texas." He was going to need all the money he could come across in the days to come, and he was willing to sacrifice a small modicum of pride in order to meet his goals. Whatever was necessary.

  The day dragged on and on, but finally ended, and he rushed through the mechanics of processing the day’s film, something he never did, waiting only long enough to get the prints hanging and drying before rushing out the door and into the streets. Even the usual day’s images were absent. Those of the previous day, and evening lingered, and they superimposed themselves too readily over the weaker images this day had to offer. Unfortunately, Dorinda and Chastity were not available in the darkroom, and the others existed only in his mind.

  Christian had stops to make before going home. He needed supplies, and, he thought, a bottle of scotch.

  * * *

  The streetlights flickered on up and down the block, and Christian sat at his kitchen table in silence, watching and waiting. In front of him sat a half-finished glass of scotch, a puddle of condensate (condensation?) forming around its base. He'd had two glasses, and his thoughts were slow and lazy, comfortable. The bottle, still almost full, sat beside his glass, but he wasn't pouring any more. Not tonight – at least not for himself.

  This was to be a night of destiny, a special night, and he had no intention of marring the experience in any way, least of all by becoming uncharacteristically drunk. Besides, now there was more in the glass than scotch.

  He fought the images that formed as he stared at the bottle, fought the pounding rhythm that forced itself into his thoughts, reaching up from his past to grab at him and pull him inward. He fought, and he lost.

  His mother's face swam before his eyes, and he heard her humming, singing to herself as she danced about their small home, stopping here to put on another dab of makeup, there for a sip of her drink, gin and whatever was available, whirling away again to turn up the stereo as a particular song came on, then down as one less favored took its place.

  Her face had been his first model. He'd seen it a thousand ways, seen the lights glimmering from the hard lines around her eyes. He had a box of photographs he'd taken, images he'd stolen from her between the humiliations – lessons he'd squirreled away, studied, and then reopened.

  His father had left when Christian was three, too young to understand anything except the abandonment. It had taken years and oceans of tears, to understand why the man had gone.

  Christian’s mother had been irrepressible. She'd been saturated with the pleasures of her body, of other bodies, of alcohol and drugs, of whatever might come her way. She'd seen Christian as a challenge, another thing to be taken in excess, another toy to possess.

  He remembered sitting in front of her dresser as she drank her gin, painting her face and telling him about this man, or that, about what she would be doing that evening. As he'd grown older, these descriptions had become more explicit, more demanding on his emotions.

  The descriptions had faded all at once, and the lessons had begun. She'd told him it was for his own good, to teach him about his body, to show him what it could do. He hadn't wanted to, not at first. He'd tried to pull away, to make her see that it was wrong, that she was wrong. In the end, her fingers, her tongue had been too much. He'd been a boy, she a woman. He'd had no chance.

  So he stole. When she humiliated him in front of her dates, dressed him up, painted his face and paraded him through the apartment while she drank and danced and played, he'd stolen the images. He'd learned the paints that made her what she most wanted to be – beautiful. He'd learned to capture the visions and make them his own.

  He'd learned one other lesson. There had been times when money was tight. His mother had her ways of making a living, and usually they were more than adequate, but there had been lean times when she'd resorted to other means, darker means.

  "This is the key," she'd told him one night as he sat and she painted herself, he wanting to disappear into the woodwork, to not know where she was going, or with whom, and she bent on revealing it. She'd held out a small bottle with a cork stopper.

  "Two drops of this in a man's drink, Chrissy, and he's mine. One more sip, and he's out. Then I'm out, you see, and his money is out with me. I never use this too close to home, so I'll be late. Don't wait up."

  He'd never waited up, but when she'd finally disappeared and not returned, following the shadow of his long departed father, Christian had kept the bottle. He'd kept the makeup too, all of the bits and pieces of his mother's life were in boxes, lining a shelf in his closet.

  Only the makeup was open, because he still used it on his creations, at times. Other times he used it on his own face, modeling for himself, watching the play of light and color on his features and across the glimmering surfaces of his eyes, learning about the vision.

  Earlier that morning, Christian had gone to the attic and unpacked the small brown bottle. Its stopper was intact. He'd calculated carefully the number of glasses in a bottle of scotch, thrown in a few extra drops for good measure. He didn’t know if the chemicals would have broken down over time, but he thought that it would do. It would have to; there would be no second chance.

  He shook his head, fought his way free of the memories and forced his focus back to the present, to the street outside the window, to the moment at hand. The neon lights of the corner market flashed once, blinked out, flashed again and stayed on. He watched, and he waited, sipping his scotch.

  His heart pounded harder than he could ever remember feeling it, but the beats were slow, regular, and powerful. He felt as if he could do anything, as if he were in control of things he'd only been vaguely aware of before this night. His destiny was coming together, the future and the past.

  When he saw two shadows melt from the greater whole of the darkness, he moved, checking to make sure everything was in place.

  When he was certain that he was as ready as he could possibly be, he slipped out the door and hurried down the street. He felt the subtle weight of eyes on his back, but ignored it. His gaze was fixed on the market ahead, and on completing the first half of his journey in peace. It was imperative that things not get out of hand. Not yet.

  He heard a sharp whistle, but this time he didn’t turn. Instead he hurried his steps, shuffled forward as though frightened and bolted into the small store. He went directly to the beer cooler and pulled out a six-pack. Budweiser. He'd seen enough advertisements around town to know it was a popular brand. Christian preferred imported beer for himself, but tonight was special.

  He grabbed a loaf of bread and some cheese to make his trip seem more natural and took his purchases to the counter. He hurried as much as he could without being obvious; he didn't want the two to get bored and give up on him.

 
"Those kids are back on the street," the old man said gruffly. "You might want to wait a few minutes before going out. They can be kind of rough..."

  "Thanks, but I'm in a hurry," Christian answered, actually flashing a quick smile at the man. "I've got some extra work to do, homework."

  The man looked at him peculiarly, but did not respond. That was fine with Christian. He didn't want to draw attention to himself, and he was afraid that his quick burst of conversation had done just that. In the three years he'd been coming here, it was the longest sentence he'd uttered.

  He paid for the beer and food and slipped back out the door with a quick nod. The light was draining fast from the evening sky and the glow from the streetlights was more pronounced, glittering brilliantly against an ebony backdrop.

  The two youngsters stood, wrapped in a tight embrace, beneath the lamp directly across from Christian's apartment. He walked slowly down the street, his bag held conspicuously in his left hand, closest to the curb.

  The boy's eyes shot up from his companion's face almost immediately, and Christian felt the boy’s gaze crawling over his skin, scouting, picking away at his defenses. Despite his earlier calm, his nerves made his muscles twitch under the youth’s intense scrutiny. Too much still depended on chance, and it would be too easy for something to go very, very wrong.

  "Hey, Buzzard," the caustic voice cut through the air like a knife, "what you got in the bag, old man?"

  Christian walked more quickly and ignored the boy. He didn't want to hurry too much, but he had to appear nervous. He hesitated and shuffled his feet, as though undecided whether to continue, or to turn and try for the safety of the store.

  "You hear me, Scarecrow?" the boy boomed. He released the girl and started across the street, walking in a line that would cut directly across Christian's path.

  His heart thudding wildly, Christian bolted forward, but the youth was too quick and cut him off easily, blocking his way. Leaning casually on the fence, the boy reached out a hand to point.