The Arrival

by Riley Moreno

  “Are you 100% sure? I will blind you again if you’re lying to me.”

  “Yes. We need to find him too.”

  “Your sight will return in a minute.” Darren feels Angelina guide him like a beggar walking a rocky and unstable road to the sofa. She puts her hands on his shoulders and helps him to sit. He bangs his leg against the coffee table and then settles himself the best he can. So that’s what blindness feels like? Your eyes illuminated permanently but still able to feel the optic nerve at the back of the head, the retina, lens, and cornea that have to succumb to the reality check of being out of work with no choice but to retire early. It’s not a nice sensation.

  “Where you and Lee the only passengers on Ringo’s flight?” Darren hears Angelina switch the main light back on in the room.

  Darren can see color coming back into his surroundings; just like when a canvass is beginning to be painted with various colors to give it some vivacity. He has never been so grateful to have his vision return. “I think so. All I can say is we aren’t sure what the hell is going on out here?” He’s rubbing his irises with a knuckle twister.

  “I said the same thing when I arrived on his flight too.”

  “Ringo flew you out here?”

  “Yes. Me and my father.”

  Chapter 6

  The food wasn’t bad, a couple of roast potatoes and some stale spinach and a bony piece of lamb. Lee pushes the tray aside, she hardly touched any of it and sprawls out on the bed with her legs crossed. She needs to pee, but judging by the state of that toilet she might catch an STD.

  The woman who’s hired to watch over Lee is ironically the café owner who wanted nothing to do with her. How the tides flow unwillingly as she sits in the one spare seat that they provided and reads a cooking magazine that looks past its due date with the faded title that reads cookers dreams.

  Lee slept well, for once, on this rocky hammock. It swung her into a frenzy, but she stuck with it and eventually managed to stay on long enough to drift off for a few hours undisturbed. But her dreams played a sad part and brought her to places that she didn’t want to go, and she woke up in this cell that needs some bug spray and a fire-blower. It actually stinks of a dead carcass, which wouldn’t be so bad if the toilet wasn’t blocked and gave away the countless murders that happened down that hole.

  The bucket is what she gets up to check, and then retches back when she sees it needs more than a good clean. Somebody vomited...and...and... she sneezes into her sleeves and walks to the corroded bars and grips onto them, shaking it violently to get rid of the frustration and dream of how she was once caged-in her mother.

  “I don’t see why you have to go off and be a cop? Why that? Why such a violent and deadly career?”

  “I didn’t expect you to approve mom.” Lee knew her mother never did. She would always try though. And act like she cared enough to passionately disagree with everything. That was her talent; pretending. An actress is what she should’ve been.

  “Well, why come here and tell me then? You obviously knew, so why come here with news I don’t want to hear from you?”

  “I just thought ... hey ... it’s been too long since me and my mother spoke. How about I pay her a visit and see if she would like to catch up? Because lord-o-mercy, most people I know, have a mother who calls once in a while, even for small talk. Even to give have some idea that the other is still breathing.”

  “Lee, you’re a black woman. Not only that. You’re a black woman with dreads, tough, love your army boots, talks and acts tougher than any man can handle, and you never needed me in your life in the first place. Me and you, we agreed that we just aren’t compatible.”

  This is what stumped Lee into a banana peel; how a mother can give birth and then claim they aren’t compatible? It was no reality show, that her mother was pro-herself and only entertained what worked and suited her lifestyle. It was very proper, and at times, dysfunctional to think that controlling and keeping everything perfect was healthy. And Lee could not play to her mother’s image of salubrious.

  Lee was not soft and dim enough to play the pauper role to her mother. And although it hurt and kept them apart, it made her become what she needed to be against everybody else with her image that often intimated all around her. “So, is there no point me even asking to come inside and to get a cup of tea?”

  “I think you don’t want to.”

  And Lee, as she holds the bars and hangs her head from her mother’s unforgetful words, really wanted to at the time. She needed her mother then. For once.

  “No shake bars. Please. Sit down.” The elderly woman is glaring at Lee like a pit bull that needs training. “Sit.” Lee has never been spoken to like that before.

  “The toilet is blocked. And the bucket is disgusting. I need to go.”

  “Then go. Hold nose.” She gets back to reading her cooking magazine.

  “I can’t.” For once, Lee does feel a little fussy about the situation. It might be that it literally is nauseating to be inside the cell. It’s worse up close. Before, standing out there and peering in, it didn’t seem so bad.” Is there no way to get another bucket? And then I’ll pour it down that infested loo?”

  “What you take me for?” She shuts the magazine angrily and gets up. “You in there for bad things. Strangers are bad people. You bring nothing but hurt and misery. Separate families. Force us to choose sides. All you bring is money for yourself. Forget that people live here. Make living.”

  “And that man you work for? Don’t you think he is a bad man?” Lee uses her language. “Badman. Real bad man. Who thinks he’s better than your people. What do you think of him and what he’s doing to you all?”

  “He has men with guns. Is close to the caretaker. What can we do around here? Nothing.”

  “But I have none of those things. I only come here to find somebody. I mean no trouble.” The elderly woman is listening within a serious unconventional battle: she’s trying to fight her hearing aid, that she doesn’t have when it comes to Lee speaking both truthfully and fervently. “I only want to do what I must. You must see me, I mean no harm.” Lee finds speaking this way can be challenging. It comes across as similar to how the Chinese pronounce their English sentences.

  “But you scare Ringo. Talk. Much talk about that.”

  “We must find him.”

  “He will find you. Much like rebels will to. They not like you here. You and friend of yours.” She goes to sit down again but gazes at Lee with different eyes and it stops her from sitting. “I ... I get bucket. I see you in pain.”

  Lee is. Her legs are held close together. “I’d really appreciate that. I’m, close to bursting.”

  Lee spots her mobile phone on the desk. They had taken it before she had been escorted inside these bars. The lady has gone and Lee wishes she could find some way of checking the numerous missed calls and a message that she got. But as she checks the cell, there is absolutely nothing to reach out and knock it onto the floor.

  Darren has been on her mind, not long, but just enough for her to wonder why he’d been single for so long with such eligibility? Lee never thought of these things. Usually, she wouldn’t have time to think about mundane subjects. But recently, out here, it’s been a cold wind blowing and it doesn’t seem to be changing temperature with the way of the people.

  There’s a lingering loneliness, and everybody seems to be under one thumb and getting squashed like peas from a pod. Splat! Splat! Splat!

  During the night, she did hear gunshots and plenty of noise that suggested the rebels might’ve passed through this town and onwards to where they needed to go. There was a little ruckus from the townsfolk who were either rushing indoors or proclaiming that all should return home tonight.

  Lee couldn’t see much, but she saw shadows moving, and mid-riffs bobbling past the small window that’s next to the main door. They were traveling by foot and in groups, not large numbers when she returned to her bed to sleep. She had hoped that Darren was safe. How w
ould she know when she was locked up here?

  That Shandi town, or whatever, might be where Darren and Lee need to go. Oh ... and the picture which catches Lee’s eyes stirs her essence into another reality check about what she was sent to do. It’s about keeping hidden. She knows that. Her identity has to be kept at bay when dealing with anybody around here.

  That pompous cockroach knew of the name Lee Coil. A madness to comprehend, but still, a frisbee is thrown that nearly knocked her off the marking board.

  Not much is piercing on her memory board, but Lee is starting to see a few things form into a puzzle. The wrong flight, Ringo not being who he said he is, that arrogant man stationed here with the title of bought luggage. A girl who is not what she appears to be. Rebels fighting to get rid of working conditions. For what though? She needs to learn more about what they’re working for. And a few banks that have been stalled for development. There’s a lot on her list. And Lee will need to find the answers to them all.

  And then there’s Henny, the big—o-man himself. The elderly woman returns with a plastic red bucket and handle. She collects the keys that are in her aprons pouch and jingle-jangles the silver keys as she comes to the cell. She spots Lee looking at her phone. She returns her gaze, “who would you call?”

  Lee’s eyes dart to her quickly. “My friend. I would call him.”

  “Stand back. I open door now.”

  Lee, if she was an arse, could run the woman down and escape as she places in the key and turns it open. It’s unlocked... Lee backs up further to make the woman more comfortable to glide in the plastic bucket. Lee sees it’s in, but the woman speedily grabs hold of her phone and slides it all the way over to Lee, and then locks the door again. “Angelina right. You a little different.”

  ...

  Darren’s waits patiently enough on that sofa. It’s nearly noon. He’s awake and not hungry. Angelina left during the early hours. But came back and is resting in her dad’s bed. Darren washes his face quickly and goes to check his phone with a spare towel in his left hand. He wipes, and then rests it down, you never know, a missed call from Lee might be there.

  There is none when he checks. But then a message comes through and it’s from her! He reads the message; I’m in a cell. Got your message. Yes, I found out quite-a-bit. And I know about Shandi town too. Ringo, apparently, will find us. But we won’t wait that long. A girl called Angelina, keep an eye out for her because she’s more than what meets the eye. Come fetch me when you can. We should think about calling Henny.”

  Darren agrees. Angelina is more than just Hona’s daughter. He wastes no time in grabbing his shirt with the tear down the spine middle and heading to open the door, but slams it shut when he sees two rebels running for the door but stop immediately when they see it’s closed. “Fuck.” Angelina is up! Standing in-between a shower of sleepiness and unawareness.

  “What’s going on? Why did you slam the door so loudly?” She sounds heavily groggy.

  “There’s two of pumpkins rebels out there with machetes. They charged at me!”

  “Shit.” She goes over to inspect the window. She opens it, and calls out, “Hola, hola, did pumpkin send you?”

  “He did Angelina. And were to wait until the stranger comes nicely with us. No harm was done. Just let him come out and we will not bother you. He’s not your priority.”

  “I cannot do that. This stranger is a friend of the families. You must respect this, no?”

  “Friend or Foe. Same thing when we think about this. Send him out. Or we find other ways to probe the hog.”

  Angelina comes away from the window. “They won’t leave.”

  “Can we go to the back?” Angelina heads towards the door closest to the kitchen and heads out.

  When she returns back, she shakes her head negatively like no chance. “They have two more back there.”

  “Can’t you shoo them off your property?” Darren hates being plugged into the wrong socket. It just doesn’t work for him.

  “I can try.” She grabs the hefty stick that she rested against the sofa and opens the front door, standing in the doorway, “I won’t send out the stranger.” And waits for their reply.

  “Do you plan to use that stick, Angelina?” The pair laughs between themselves and mean to offend and belittle her choice of self-defense.

  “Don’t you think this could bash your skulls in?”

  “I think what we have in our hands is far deadlier?” The man who has the reddest skin that Darren has ever witnessed watches as he gives Angelina a show. “Just look at how it cuts through the air!” A phwoooo comes from the blade like a swooping bird. He gives another slice but sideways this time with a chop-chop-chop-chop. And with the finale, he lifts the machete behind his shoulder blade and pretends to jab the grip at his forehead. Darren is standing behind Angelina. “What sort of man is this? Hiding like a coward.”

  Darren lets his ego stay in check. “What fairness is it, that you have machetes, and he has only himself. Do you call that fair?”

  “I only know that it’s fair for him to come and speak with Pumpkin.”

  “And who put pumpkin in charge?”

  “He did. We all know that. We will not leave here until we have that man.”

  “This is Hona’s property. And when he gets back, he’ll tell you all to leave.”

  “Hona will not be back today. Too much happened at Shandi town for him to be back so soon. So that means, you’ll have no choice but to deal with us until he does return.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” Angelina nippily shuts the door on their faces.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “We make a break for it.”

  “I don ... I think that sounds pretty homicidal to me.” But Darren still has his thinking cap turned on with regards to her suggestion.

  “No other way. They are right about my father. Shandi town is at least an hour away. And with that car of his, I’d add another hour to that timescale. Last night was a messy one with the 4 – guests that arrived. I’m pretty sure Albastor was one of them. They held a meeting, and I heard they had the utmost protection with them because this conference is the beginning of many that seal a major deal for Albastor.”

  “So where do we head to?”

  “We can go through the back and head up the slope that’s probably 50 – meters from here. It’s an easy trek. And there’s a sanctuary there that deals with the elderly and destitute. Not quite nuns, but they come over and help with some Christian aid or something. They hand out pamphlets on how to beat the new wave of change and still keep your sanity. Nice ladies, but sort of loopy when people out here keep religion as a past-time.”

  “And the rebels won’t dare go there?”

  “They keep away from religion. It makes them feel guilty for their sins. And those ladies certainly let them know that their way of looking for redemption is a sin.”

  “I’ll have to let Lee know of the situation...”

  Angelina stops him from texting what he originally was going to. “Message her that she should stay in that cell and get to know Matilda.” Yep, he was not going to message her that at all. It would’ve been more along the lines of panic. On the run. Catch you later.

  “Will this Matilda help her out?”

  “This Matilda is an old fox that stinks up the place with her bad attitude. She knows and sees plenty that goes along here so it’s made her cranky. But she’s got plenty of knowledge. Can answer whatever Lee needs to know.”

  “I think Lee needs to know more than she originally thought!”

  ...

  Lee has just received a text from Darren: Angelina says to befriend Matilda. She might have some answers. Lee looks up from her phone and rests it on her bed. She had that theory in mind about Matilda, especially when it came down to learning about Ringo. But another text came through an hour ago, it was from Henny.

  But Lee will think on that later as she heads to the bars and reinstates her gawping interest in the photograp
h of the lady who must be the missing journalist. The other photographs have this yellowing-bronze shade of a dead or alive feel from the wild west - were a bounty can be received if they’re found.

  The writing beneath each merely states: missing or found. Underneath the female journalist is missing. And her name is Camila Annette, light skin: that’s not mentioned, and last seen near Shandi Town.

  Matilda has kindly emptied the bucket for Lee and comes back to see her at the far-end of the bars trying to get the best view possible. “Another stranger who came and foolish to think that she going to be fine. Liked to write. Always holding pen and paper in hand.” Matilda sets the bucket outside for some air; then washes her hand at the unattached sink that only has cold water. “I wonder where she go now?”

  “Did you ever speak with Camila?”

  Matilda twists her neck; wipes her hands on the apron and then heads to the photograph of Camila. “Hmm. I speak with her one time when she come café. She like you, ask too many question for liking.” Matilda loses interest in standing and heads to sit down. “So many question about town. She to nosey.”

  “What happened to her, Matilda?”

  “That no concern of yours. You need worry about yourself. Trouble. They will start to see you as trouble.”

  “Just like Camila? Trouble. Was she trouble to them?”

  “Much trouble. Oh yes!” Matilda is up. “Let me sweep floor.” She goes in search of a broom. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not right now. So, why was she trouble for them?”

  “To many question,” Matilda says this with defiance. “She asked too many. And she disappeared.”

  “Questions about what?”

  Matilda finds the broom and shakes it at Lee with vengeance. “No more. No more ask question!” She slams down the stiff fibers of the broom and grips that handle while sweeping a floor that needs a spiritual cleanse. It’s beyond muck and grime. What she sweeps up is plenty of dead skin and mouse droppings.