She had become her mother.
She dropped her head into her hands, shook it back and forth so that her long dreadlocks fell across her face and shoulders.
Megan left her cereal, came around and wrapped her thin arms around her. Rubbed her back. “What’s wrong, Mommy? Don’t cry.”
Rebecca couldn’t find words. She just kept shaking her head.
6
It was after his seizure that Calendula began seeing the ghosts.
At first it was just the little boy. When the rain stopped, Megan would run outside to play in the trash-strewn yard, and he would see him, sometimes sitting there on an old tire rim, watching her with an amused face, other times running along beside her while she shrieked and leapt. Other times he saw them huddled close, whispering to each other.
Then he met the other one.
He couldn’t resist the strange urge to return to Coyote’s cabin. It pulled at him, until one day he just found himself standing there before it. The door hung ajar, open from the last time he had been here. So, it wasn’t a dream after all.
Before he stepped inside, on a weird instinct, he cranked the key to the generator, not knowing if it would start or not. It roared to life and electricity coursed into the tiny cabin.
A stereo came on, spitting out music: The Mommas and the Poppas. “California Dreamin’.”
Multi-colored Christmas tree lights were draped over the walls and ceiling, and they gleamed and glittered, giving shape to the darkness. And now the room didn’t feel so dank and lonely, so confined, ugly or sinister. It felt festive.
He told himself he wasn’t afraid. That he wanted to hear the voice he had heard before. Confront it. But the sound of shuffling cards startled him so badly that he jumped, and when he spun around, the hairs on the nape of his neck stood erect like porcupine quills.
There at the table, shuffling cards, was a skinny, gnarled looking old man with a long, graying beard, and an orange Harley bandana wrapped pirate-style around his head. And despite himself, Calendula was afraid, very afraid.
“Relax, kid. I ain’t gonna hurt ’cha.”
The man split the deck and let the cards flutter back together between his boney hands, a tangle of pale scar tissue on his knuckles and long fingers gleaming red and green in the glare of the Christmas-tree lights. “Care for a game of Texas Hold ’Em?”
Calendula stared, frozen, his breath caught in his throat, too afraid to even exhale.
“What’s up?” the man asked. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Who…?” Calendula could barely get the word past the bird’s nest in his throat. “Who are you?”
“Why, I’m your Uncle Spider, kid.”
7
The truck went up, over the sidewalk, careening past the cars lined up outside Sears, then crashed off the curb and back onto the asphalt, the back tires of the pickup screeching and fishtailing as DJ cranked the steering wheel left and whipped past the DO NOT ENTER ONE WAY sign, barreling the wrong direction down Bayshore Way and out of the mall parking lot.
“Oh my God,” Katie said. “You’re bleeding. What happened? Where are you hurt?”
DJ gritted his teeth. “It’s not my blood.”
He could hear the sirens already. Fuck. He should have known something like this was going to happen. Should have known. He steered the pickup around the thin backroad, barely dodging a Subaru coming the opposite direction, horn blaring. When he hit the 101 he slowed down, swung right onto the highway, merging with the traffic and hoping he blended in, that none of the shoppers he had roared past had taken down his license plate.
It had originally seemed like a good idea to do the deal in the mall parking lot. A wide open, public place, familiar to them all. But when he realized it was a back corner, in an empty, unused part of the lot that backed up to the homeless encampment known as the Devil’s Playground, he got a queasy feeling in his gut.
When he’d pulled up to Big T’s Camaro and saw Jimmy Cankerly in the passenger seat and Clint Cankerly in the back seat, his gut went from queasy to straight nauseous.
Jimmy and Clint Cankerly, two brothers less than a year apart in age, did not have the best history with him.
“This don’t look good.” He opened the console and grabbed the snub-nosed .38 his father had given him.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked, stubbing her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray and blowing out a cloud of smoke.
“Big T fucking brought the Cankerly brothers with him. I don’t get along with those fools.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Feel it out, I guess.” He slipped the pistol into the waist of his jeans and draped his shirt over the bulge.
“S’up, DJ?” Big T shouted, rolling out of the Camaro.
Christ, the fat fuck had actually gained weight and was now enormous, easily a good two-eighty, maybe even heavier. He wore a baggy T-shirt, dripping with gold chains and bling. His eyes were tiny black dots in a mound of doughy flesh.
DJ stepped down from the truck, nervously eyeing the two brothers. Jimmy came strutting over with a predatory, pimp-like gait: one hand clutching his crotch, the other swinging back and forth. He was wearing a gold-colored vinyl hoodie covered in hot-pink dollar signs and pink faux-fur trim. Clint hung back by the car and crossed his thick arms over his wife-beater. His head was shaved and he had SS lightning bolts tattooed on the side of his muscular, long neck.
DJ knew their routine: Jimmy the mouthpiece and deal maker, Clint the silent muscle.
“DJ, DJ.” Jimmy pulled off his Elvis-style aviator sunglasses. The sun glinted off the gems in the gold grill that filled his mouth and he sucked spit as he spoke. “You looking good, dog. Healthy. Yeah, yeah, I see you doing all right.”
DJ nodded at him. “Hey.”
Big T held out a palm for a soul shake. When their hands slapped together he pulled DJ in for an embrace, swallowing him up into his enormous bulk as he patted him on the back. “Why so tense, bro? Relax, my man.”
DJ brought his face up to Big T’s ear and whispered, “Why did you bring them here?”
“Relax. Relax. I’m just here to broker this deal. Nothing more. S’all good. S’all good.”
Jimmy sauntered closer and amiably held out a fist for a bump. DJ lightly tapped his knuckles against his. DJ
Jimmy finally broke the silence. “So, you got the goods, or what? We hear you’se got the bomb shit. Icicles. Is it really as good as all that?”
“Yeah. It’s good.”
“Sweet. Two elbows, right?”
“You got the money?”
“Course I do, my man. Think I’d show up without my paperwork together? I ain’t fucking around. Yo, Clint, toss me that paper, dog.”
Clint reached into the side pocket of his cargo pants, never taking his eyes off DJ, and pulled out a brick-sized bundle of cash, secured with numerous rubber bands, tossed it to his brother.
“All hundreds, too. Three-hundred and twenty of ‘em: thirty-two large.” He held the bundle out to DJ. As DJ reached for it he quickly pulled it back. “Uh, uh, uh,” he said waving a finger. “Not till we see the product. And for that price it better be as good as we was told.”
Jimmy slipped the cash into the side pocket of his cargo pants, crossed his arms, cocked his head and stared at DJ while sucking obnoxiously on his grill.
DJ lit a cigarette. Blowing out a jet of smoke, he gazed out at the empty corner of the parking lot, then back to Jimmy and his brother, and finally over to Big T, who smiled and nodded his head to get on with it.
“All right,” he said.
“All right.”
He turned and opened the door to his pickup, reached across Katie who smiled dumbly, and felt around under the seat.
“Everything okay?” Katie asked.
DJ grasped the brown paper bag with the meth in it. “Yeah, seems legit enough.”
Katie made a kissing face at him, puckering her lips like a fish. DJ rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut. He handed the bag to Jimmy, who opened it, pulled out the freezer-bag full of crystal—the shards clattering with the sound of ice in a glass—and examined it for a moment before stuffing it back in.
“Looking good, looking good,” Jimmy said. “Yo, Clint, weigh this shit for me,” tossing the bag to his brother.
“Now let’s see the cash,” DJ said, nervously watching the product as it whipped through the air and landed in Clint’s hands.
“Hold on, hold on. We got a little incident to discuss. You owe me. Don’t you?”
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“A little incident a few years ago involving a lot of trim and a very, very little bit of hash.”
“Shit, man, you know that wasn’t me. That was Dave Patterson.”
“You best check yourself right now and own up. Be a man. Cause I know you was in on it and if you try to make me out to be a liar I’m not going to be too kind.”
“I swear, man. I wasn’t in on that shit. And it was only, like, three-thousand bucks’ worth of hash.”
“Three thousand, plus interest. Plus,” he said, spittle spraying from his mouth, “you humiliated me. Made me look like a fucking idiot. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”
As if on cue Clint took off running with the bag of speed, sprinting across the parking lot and into the woods. DJ made a move to follow and Jimmy quickly stepped up, arms spread wide, and slammed into him with his chest, knocking him onto his ass.
Big T stepped up, giving Jimmy a pleading look. “The fuck, man?”
“Stay out of it Todd, you fat ass. This is between me and DJ.” Then, turning his attention back to DJ: “ So, what you gonna do about it, bitch?”
DJ scrambled up, stepped back, and pulled the gun from his waist band, watching Jimmy’s eyes go wide and his mouth fall open. “Give me the fucking money.”
Instantly, with jack-rabbit grace, Jimmy ducked behind Big T, slunk around the Camaro, and took off across the parking lot in the same direction as his brother.
“Dude,” Big T said, throwing up his hands defensively, “I had nothing to do with that shit. You gotta believe—”
“Get the fuck out of my way,” DJ said, pushing past him.
As his feet beat against the cracked asphalt, DJ watched Jimmy disappear into a tangle of vegetation where the parking lot ended. His heart hammering in his chest, a trail of sweat beginning to leak down his face, DJ was leaping over the curb and tearing through the woods, down the path after him.
There was the bay to the left, a massive black expanse of water. The path widened and suddenly he was in the middle of a huge homeless encampment.
He stopped, his breath coming in short, jagged pants, and cut his eyes across the maze of tents and make-shift shelters. A dog was barking somewhere. The stink of the bay was strong in his nostrils.
Then he spotted him: darting around a group of men huddled around a fire. Tearing after him, DJ negotiated badly around a rusted shopping cart full of recyclables, clipping it with his hip. It bit painfully into his side, tearing his shirt, and sending him tumbling. His face hit the ground and he tasted dirt. The cart came crashing down behind him, showering him with beer bottles and soda cans. Angry screams and threats rang out as he pushed himself up off the ground.
A dirty, bearded man in a ripped parka was shouting and storming towards him. “You gonna pick that shit up, motherfucker?”
DJ flashed the revolver at him. “Back the fuck up.”
The guy held up his filthy hands, palms outward, and slowly backed away. “It’s cool, man. It’s cool.”
DJ caught sight of Jimmy, just a streak of gold and pink, rounding a tilted flagpole topped with a tattered Confederate flag, and was after him. Then they were out of the camp, racing through pampas grass and sand dunes.
He was gaining on him.
Jimmy cast a furtive look over his shoulder and darted right, towards the beach, disappearing behind a bank of sand.
DJ leapt off a small incline and landed on the beach, the bay lapping at his feet. Sea gulls circled, squalling. In the distance, fishing boats were returning to Woodley Island. He frantically looked either way down the beach. Nothing. Not a sign of him, when—crack—Jimmy’s fist slammed into the left side of his mouth. He saw darkness, then a flash of light, then he was falling backwards, the revolver slipping from his fingers.
When he could see again he was lying on his back, half in the surf, and Jimmy was on top of him, his knees pressing DJ’s shoulders into the sand so that the water washed up over his face. Coughing and sputtering, DJ flailed with his hands as he watched Jimmy pull his arm back and cock his fist. Then, by some miracle, DJ’s hand fell onto the .38. He pulled the gun up and his finger found the trigger just as Jimmy’s arm shot forward, and DJ squeezed, aiming blindly.
The bullet ripped through Jimmy’s knuckles, just as his fist was falling. Splinters of bone and blood showered down on DJ. Jimmy howled and tumbled off him, clutching his wrist. His hand was a tangled mess of muscles and tendons.
DJ leapt up, pointing the .38 down at him. He was shaking badly. His mouth filled with blood. He struggled to control his rapid breaths. “Gimme the money.”
Jimmy rolled back and forth in the surf, screaming in agony.
“I said give me the money,” DJ yelled, squeezing off a round into the water by Jimmy’s head.
Jimmy flinched spasmodically in the tide, squirming like a hooked fish. Then, with his good hand, he reached into the side pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out the big brick of cash. “Take it.”
DJ took the bundle from him and clasped it to his chest like a football. “Lucky I don’t cap you, motherfucker.”
He bolted away down the beach.
8
Spider dealt out seven cards in front of him, talking calmly to Calendula. “That’s right, I’m the reason they call this place Homicide Hill, and I ain’t got no regrets. You gotta do what you gotta do. Yep, you could say I planted a few seeds out there in them hills. Dug a few holes and filled ’em, if you catch what I’m saying.” He looked up at Calendula, his face haggard and ghastly, like some kind of leprous pirate, and winked.
Calendula started to laugh and then caught himself. Be cool, he told himself. It’s cool. But it wasn’t cool. Things were funny. Real funny. Weird. Time was not acting right. Events were not following each other correctly. Sometimes he would get déjà vu so terribly—everything mimicking itself in crazy patterns—that he wondered if he wasn’t caught in some kind of time loop.
He was in the back cabin again, with Spider, listening to his stories and bravado. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. He nodded, trying not to appear too disconcerted as the bearded old man rambled on. “You get a skunk in your wood pile you take care of it. Simple as that. You gotta ask yourself: Am I a man or an ant? See? There’s the question right there. Are you a fucking man, or a goddamn insect to be stomped on? A piss-ant. You know what a fucking piss-ant is?”
Calendula shook his head.
“A piss-ant is a little bug trying to crawl its way out your toilet. Something you piss on to wash it back down to the gutter where it belongs. So, are you a man or are you a piss-ant to be flushed down the fucking drain?”
Calendula stared at the scary old man, unsure
whether he was asking him a question or making a philosophical statement, relieved when the grizzled biker started back up again.
“Motherfuckers come here and shoot me, sneak up on my ass and fill me full of holes, kill me. But jokes on them. Fuck you. I ain’t leaving. I ain’t going nowhere. Get where I’m coming from, kid?”
Calendula nodded. This couldn’t be real. He had lost his shit, his cookies got spilled somewhere and smashed to bits. Only explanation.
“That’s why me and Coyote get along so well. He never minded me being here none. Matter of fact, that good old feller done liked me, the lonely cuss. So we got along real nice like. Famously you might say. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Sure,” Calendula said, wondering if maybe he was dreaming. Maybe this whole thing was a dream, all of it, a dream within a dream. Where had he heard that before? His mind raced back to a paper he had written in a high school English class on the nature of dreams in literature. Was that Poe? Or Conrad? No, Conrad was, “We live as we dream—alone.” It had to be Poe.
“But I got a good feeling about you, kid. We’re going to be pals. That’s for sure. You want you some instant coffee? A little wake-up powder?”
“Ah, sure. You want me to put some water on to boil, Spider?” Trying out his name for the first time, seeing how it felt on his tongue, coming out of his mouth—Calendula was trembling. But the name felt natural enough.
Spider laughed again, this time so hard he began to cough and choke, slapping his knees with the palms of his hands. “Ha ha. Ain’t no need for water with this get-go powder.” He wagged a tiny baggy of white splinters at Calendula. “Devil’s dandruff.”
Spider reached behind him and took a dusty Pabst Blue Ribbon mirror off the wall. He began to vigorously clean the surface with his sleeve, smiling up at Calendula with a mouth full of rotten teeth. “Stole this thing off the wall of a bar in Reno back in eighty-two.” He laughed a deep guffaw and placed the mirror in front of him and then emptied the bag on it. Rolling up a greasy bill, he inserted one end in his nose and snorted a mound of powder.
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