by Dan Glover
Peppermint
Soul
Books by Dan Glover
Liza McNairy Series
Peppermint Soul
Baja Blues
Deadhead
Horror
Water and Stone
Philosophy
Lila’s Child: An Inquiry Into Quality
The Art of Caring: Zen Stories
The Mystery: Zen Stories
Apache Nation
The Lazy Way to 100,000 Twitter Followers
The Gathering of Lovers Series
Billy Austin
Lisa
Allison Johns
Tom Three Deer
Justine
Yelena
The Mermaid Series
Winter's Mermaid
Mermaid Spring
Summer's Mermaid
Mermaid Autumn
Short Stories
There Come a Bad Cloud: Tangled up Matter and Ghosts
Mi Vida Dinámica
Streets
Thoughts on the 5:58
Peppermint Soul
Dan Glover
Published by Lost Doll Publishing
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or to the dead is coincidental.
Lissi
Lizzi
I'm the star of my own Armageddon.
My life is trapped
within these heavy stencils–
half the time scoring
and the other half snoring.
Chapter 1—Life and Times of Danners Forthright
(Yesterday's Shadows)
1
Danners Forthright was different. Looking into a mirror he could see it. Apparently so could everyone else. As much as he yearned to be normal it was always just out of his reach. Though he longed to fit in, to be like the rest of them... the pretty ones... the regular souls, he knew from the time he could walk that his path would be one of isolation and loneliness. Mother berating him over his ineptitude didn’t engender any confidence in his few abilities either. You're not worth a shit for anything, Danners... you never will be.
But she was wrong. Finally, one day, he managed to discover one thing he was good at: using a gun. Killing people. Putting them down. The elimination game, or so he called it. Yeah, he'd gone and joined the army right out of high school, while a war raged half a world away. It seemed a good idea at the time. The sergeant said his skills at the gunnery range were exceptional. When they sent him to war he killed without emotion. To him the enemy was nothing more than targets to be put into graves.
Going through boot camp he'd palled around with a boy who went by the name of Jerry Addams. He said he hailed from Jackson, Mississippi and he spoke with a heavy southern accent that at first was hard to follow. Like him, Jerry had volunteered for duty, one of a long line of Addams who'd served the country. Though they only knew one another a short while he was as good a friend as Danners ever had. After boot camp, however, the boy—being pre-med—was assigned to the medical battalion while he drew infantry. It was what he signed up for... a taste of war.
In each shot he took he saw the enemy... not the Viet Cong, but rather those people back home that'd tormented him for so long and way too often... the black hellions in Detroit, those assholes in Los Angeles, and all the foster parents he grew to hate. With each bullet he squeezed off a memory was obliterated. He wondered if he killed enough of them that he'd be somehow reborn. Something told him yes. And so each day he honed his skills, and each night he forgot a little more. A rage boiled inside his belly... the anger burned bright each time he sighted the enemy through his scope, brought a finger to the trigger, and unleashed hell upon the victim.
But then something strange happened. As one of the army's premier snipers, Danners tagged along with the Rangers unit... HHC 1st Cavalry Division, Company E, LRRP Detachment. He acted as a guardian angel. Alone. Always alone. That way he could spot enemy soldiers from a distance and put them down before they had an opportunity to attack the team.
Early one evening when they were about to make camp, Danners noticed a figure creeping through the dense jungle undergrowth working their way towards the Ranger team. As he sighted through the Leopold MK4 scope with his finger grazing the trigger of his only companion—a specialized M25 White Feather Tactical/Carlos Hathcock Springfield rifle—Danners noted how whoever was approaching the Ranger encampment was injured. Their shirt smeared with blood and a stagger to their walk seemed indicative of someone bearing a great weight while slowly dissolving in the heat. Was it an escaped American soldier on his way home? Or could it be a member of the Viet Cong laden with explosives and ready to blow himself up and take as many Americans with him as possible?
He couldn’t take the chance. If he spared the man his life and was wrong he'd be putting the entire team at risk. He'd been taught to shoot first and never ask questions. This was war. Show no mercy. Do you hear me, Forthright? Do I register through that thick skull of yours? It'll only come back to bite you in the ass, boy.
So he drew a bead on the figure stumbling through the weeds while slowly squeezing the Kanjar trigger—set at his preferred seven ounces—bracing the butt of the rifle hard against his shoulder anticipating the recoil and steeling himself for the retort.
Nothing happened. The Springfield was normally such a reliable weapon that he wondered momentarily if he'd forgotten to load it. Of course he hadn’t. That was an impossibility, something that simply couldn’t happen. Not out here. Not when others were depending upon him for their lives.
Examining the rifle, Danners discovered a tiny twig had lodged between the hammer and the firing pin. Strange, since the chamber was enclosed to keep such a thing from happening. That's what made the Springfield a great weapon for jungle games. Breaking down the rifle and pulling out his knife he used the point to clear the obstruction. Working quickly now. Reassembling the weapon and again shouldering the Springfield he scanned the area where he'd last seen the figure creeping towards the Rangers.
By now the ghost was nearly upon the unsuspecting Rangers. His finger tensed ever so slightly as he calculated the distance, the wind speed, the humidity, the heat... all factors in how far a bullet would travel. He knew the exact drop of the bullet for every one hundred yards though the exact distance was only a guess.
Squeeze... squeeze... squeeze. Finally, the Springfield barked. Even with the heavy barrel and the recoil compensator the rifle bucked up. Bringing the scope to bear once more just above his intended objective he let go another volley. The Rangers alert now, sensing the danger creeping up on them. Melting into the trees. The target slumped and still and lying on the ground not thirty meters from the camp perimeter.
Scanning the area
2
For movement.
Nothing.
Scoping out the campsite he saw a group of soldiers administering aide to a fallen comrade. Thinking the worst, that he'd failed and allowed the enemy to bring down one of his own, Danners set out to the camp, mindful of booby traps laid by the Viet Cong.
As he drew closer he could hear the tell-tale whistle of a lung shot, a kill hit. No one survived that type of injury... maybe back in the world but not out here. Doubtlessly one of the Rangers had taken a bullet and it was his fault. He'd let them down. They'd probably lynch him. He'd be at least subject to a court marshal. Visions of prison danced in front of his eyes... hard time, Leavenworth, or worse. For a moment he thought about turning back and bypassing the Ranger camp. Maybe make his way to Cambodia or India or Burma... someplace, anyplace where he could disappear... make a
new life. But then he summoned his courage and stepped out of the jungle.
His old friend Jerry Addams lay in the clearing flat on his back with a rolled-up shirt someone placed under his head. With each breath Danners could see a fine red mist rising from his mouth like some beleaguered whale that beached itself and now lay dying. The whistling noise came from twin holes in Jerry's chest... Springfield holes... one on the left and one on the right. One of the Rangers kneeling beside him glanced up at Danners and shook his head. The man wasn’t going to make it.
"What're you doing out here, Jerry?"
Danners heard the words before he realized he'd spoken them. The boy looked up at him and then down at his wounds with wild red eyes, fearful eyes, eyes that knew each beat of his heart was pumping out and adding to a pool of precious blood which slowly coagulated in the heat, sticky on the ground. Soon there'd be no more left.
"Attacked... everyone dead... doctors and nurses... lost for days... thought I made it back..."
Each word was punctuated with a deeply drawn out burble as Jerry Addams dug for just one more breath... another second of life. Even now, Danners knew the man's lungs were filling with liquid and in a few more seconds he'd drown in his own blood. Jerry kept blinking his eyes as if trying to wake himself from some horrid nightmare that wouldn’t cease.
He felt death when reaching out to touch the boy... to console that thing that'd once been Jerry Addams but was now just a bloodied soon to be corpse. Just another palavering cadaver, a talking carcass marked by the circus of death. Darkness crowding in. Ears going silent. Skin clammy cold despite the jungle heat. Real and visceral, the reaper had come calling.
There was nothing to be done even though the Rangers looked at him with something like hope shining in their eyes, as if they believed he could heal the hurt doled out by the gunshots meant for an enemy, not one of their own, as if he could snatch back the veil of time, pull away the bullets, and return Jerry Addams to the state of grace he once inhabited in another time and another space.
For a moment he believed it himself. But then the wild eyes turned to wax, like dead doll eyes, and the heaving chest rose and fell for the final time. Danners kept waiting for the breathing to start again. He wanted to scream to the fallen man, to bend down and shake him out of the stupor into which he'd fallen, to yank him away from the clutches of death pawing at him, dragging the boy down into the muck and the filth of the jungle.
But he just stood there, staring.
In a flash Danners detested the war. Hated the killing, the pain, the misery for all to witness. He saw himself going back home again only not the same Danners who'd left there thinking war was somehow noble and romantic and good. He'd been duped. A patriot... right... what the hell was that? An idiot on a fool's mission... that's what it amounted to. Here he was, a stranger in a foreign land killing indiscriminately... shooting anything that moved, be it man, beast, woman, or child. Or a friend...
Danners absently watched the column of ants streaming up out of the jungle floor intent upon making a meal of Jerry's precious blood. That's what soldiers everywhere amounted to: food. They fed their cultures victory stories, doses of valor, yet anyone who'd been a soldier knew better. All these boys, what were they doing here? Dying for the old men who waged war from afar, wallowing in a hate that they'd never touch, not like this. He watched the faces of the Rangers as they frantically raced to save the life of a fellow soldier with two feet already in the grave. And like that, Danners wasn’t angry any longer.
For the longest time he wanted the war to go on forever. What would he do back in the world? Nothing. He had no skills, no trade. He killed people for a living. That's what he did. That's the only thing he did. After the death of Jerry Addams, however, he remembered a sense of jubilation when they told him the war had finally ended and they sent him back home. Only he knew there'd be more wars, an endless stream of gristle and blood pouring out of rent bodies darkening history and belching forth ghosts that prowled the night and haunted his rancid dreams.
3
Goddamn him for his sins, anyway... but he was good at seeing things before they happened. Even in those long ago days of his childhood Danners foresaw many things: the day and hour of his death... that he'd be forever alone even when surrounded by others, especially when he was among the crowd. He knew he'd go to prison—and even come close to being executed—for revealing certain information about the death of a little boy yet the telling couldn’t be stopped. He told himself to keep quiet. But in the end he had to come forward.
That day, standing and watching a man die because of the bullets he'd pumped into him, bing, bang, boom... for perhaps the first time he understood the truth... that he knew what he saw in his dreams would come true even if he consciously tried to change the outcome. Like his old pal Jerry Addams, he couldn’t run from death. He could only move toward it. He realized with a start that while most everyone else believed they were possessed of free will—that they could freely choose their destinies—his was already written, determined from the beginning. Maybe it was the same with others too only they didn’t realize it.
He knew there'd be one great love in his life and though he never cared for them all that much, that love would be a woman. For ages he thought of that woman as his mother. Now, he knew otherwise. He'd stay here forever if he could... wrapped in the arms of Liza McNairy. It mattered not if they ever consummated their relationship... in fact, it might be better if they eschewed sex all together. That close of intimacy might well ruin what they had. He always dreamed his best when Liza slept with him, cuddling him like he'd hold Benji bear, close and dear. Sometimes he'd just lie there watching her. She'd wake for the briefest instant... gaze at him, smile and go back to sleep... and he'd know he was home.
Maybe that was all a dream too. What if he was still that little boy stuck in the hellhole called Detroit, floating ass up in the stinking river? Perhaps he'd dreamed this whole life and soon he'd awaken back in the ghetto to the smell of hashish and incense and the sound of the beaded door curtain softly rustling as someone entered his room and mother standing over him weeping softly as if mortified at what she'd produced and brought into the world. Quit eating those goddamned peppers, Danners. You'll be shitting fire for a week. Yes, mother.
4
Mother. What a hoot that was. Sure, she'd dropped him out of that crack between her legs, so he supposed that qualified her as his mother. But Christ... did she have to be so mean all the time? Maybe she wasn’t. Surely there must have been at least a moment when she treated him like a son instead of a son of a bitch... but for the life of him he couldn’t remember it. Ungrateful little bastard... that was him all over again.
Now that he'd found the twins—if indeed he'd really located them—the real questions remained: who had been responsible for their disappearance all those years ago? Two people? Many people? Men and women both? Or was it two women? One person? Two men? Many? He couldn’t tell for sure. They loved money. They pretended to love the twins but they loved money more. There were people who were as close to the twins as father and mother... closer, maybe. Aunts. Grandmothers. No... too young to be grandmothers. Watchers. Waiters. All of them crowding his dreams like phantoms rising up in the mist from newly dug graves.
Most times when he managed to locate the missing, he felt a certain certainty that was now lacking. The Picany twins seemed to be both alive and yet dead at the same time. They were in no one place but dozens scattered across the country. Maybe he was losing his touch. Or perhaps even his mind. Age might be creeping up faster than he anticipated. If he could discover who was responsible for their disappearance all those years ago, perhaps that might help lead him to the truth. Now, all he had were suppositions.
A slew of writhing maggots laced his dreams, needy ghouls sucking the life out of the living. Their sullen soggy faces of waxy dough were hidden but Danners thought he recognized them by the shapes of their bodies... some fat and some slim. Their names were but his
ses in the dark. The dragon was there, pointing and grinning the way dragons had a habit of doing. Insistently insolent. Invitingly defiant. All Danners wished was to sleep here forever, alone with Liza, free from the hate and hurt of the world. But the dragon demanded that he look.
It had to be the peppers again. Always those hot fucking peppers. Why did he torture himself so? He despised spicy food, particularly the ghost peppers Reilly had purchased when they were down in Mexico and dared him to eat. Called them little red flamethrowers. Hot as fuck. He could feel them burning holes in his belly and yet he chewed more of them. Tears rolling down his cheeks. Sweat beading on his forehead. The things he did for love. Wasn’t there a song that went like that?
Falling now. Whenever he discovered the capacity to fly, he fell. Invariably. Even though he knew he could fly in his dreams, he fell. Preordained, maybe, these fallings into the knowing of yesterdays long expired. When he hit the ground he'd expire in a puff of smoke, and yet not. Bouncing instead. No pain, only an anxiety as deeply seated as his fear of being left alone. Don't worry, Danners... mommy will be back directly.
They used that against the twins... that fear of being alone, of becoming forever sundered from one another. They'd do anything to keep that from happening. Just tell us, father. Only he wasn’t their father. He played around the edges. He convinced those girls of a sincerity he lacked, a compassion nonexistent. All you have to do is to go to sleep, girls. When you wake, everything will be so much better. You'll see.
And so they drifted into slumber. And on and on they slept, like tiny princesses who shared a bite of the poison apple. Only the twins had no Prince Charming seeking for them... only an old faggot in pink who tittered in high pitched squeals each time he watched The Sound of Music and who dreamed of being Julie Andrews if only for the moment and who loved a woman, of all people.
