by Weston Ochse
“What the hell you shakin’ your head about? I haven’t even asked you a fuckin’ question, yet. Yeah. Definitely retarded. Definitely—Whoa! Greg. This boy’s been drinkin.”
“Bergen? No way. The gimp wouldn’t know how to drink.”
“No. Seriously, man. He reeks.”
“Shit. Probably means my brother’s been drinking too. Little bastard is going to get me in trouble. God knows I always get blamed for everything.”
The left-right-left of his head and the undulations of the black river beneath the car sent Bergen’s stomach spiraling violently against its internal confines. A strange metallic taste appeared in his mouth as if he’d just ingested a roll of old pennies. His head sagged backward as equilibrium suddenly escaped him.
“Better let him go before he gets sick, Ernie. After all this, the last thing I need is retard puke smelling up the inside of the car.”
“Wait a minute. Here,” Ernie said grabbing Bergen’s right hand, “look at this.”
Bergen stared as well and was stunned by what he saw. He knew he was going to be in trouble, for his palm was covered with dried red paint from handling the paintballs. His mind momentarily cleared, detailing the terrifically terrible enormity of the situation. He’d made a horrible mistake. He was drunk, well on the way to what was scientifically termed as wasted. The fear was almost enough to sober him.
“You rotten little motherfucker!”
A blow to his stomach sent the air rushing from his body. A second blow released its contents in a spew of watery alcoholic residue and yellow bile. The third blow was mercifully delayed as he heard cursing. He discovered his hands had been protectively covering his face. He spread his fingers and opened his eyes just in time to see a boot coming towards him. Before he could close them, a shattering pain left a dazzling galaxy in the place of his vision.
He heard screaming in the distance and even amidst his own pain, felt pity for the poor soul. A yawning chasm of blackness rushed towards him; although dark and deep, it was far less deadly than the light. He felt himself sliding towards the chasm, but unconsciousness was preempted by yet another blow. He felt the warm stickiness of blood mix with the slickness of snot as both ran into his mouth. He retched once more, sending shock waves of pain through his ribs. He tried to cry out, but there was no longer breath enough for it.
He whimpered once, dreading what was surely to come.
And it did…
A flurry of long-limbed retaliation sent him once and for all deep into the blackness of nowhere.
* * *
When the beating began he’d tried to stop it. But for all his size and sharp wings and claws, it had only made the boys pause in their assault upon Bergen. When the other boy who’d been dancing around cheering his friend on had picked up a large stick, Maxom knew it was time to change tactics.
He dodged the thick piece of wood twice, then hurtled himself into the woods. Once he was certain the bird would be safe, he snapped back into himself. The combination of distance and his own anxiety made his head spin. He felt nauseous. Staring down at his prosthetics laying on the carpet beneath him, he knew he had no chance to make it to the bathroom. With his remaining hand, he swept the prosthetics out of the way, a mere second before his clenched mouth opened up and the remains of scrambled eggs and grits hit the floor. He lay there heaving, his mind still spinning.
It was dangerous to disengage like that. So soon. So quick. Without any preparation. But it had been necessary. A boy’s life depended on him. No telling what was happening to him even now, much less what would happen to the boy when they left. And if there was one thing that he didn’t want, it was to have another life upon his conscience.
Maxom slid off the couch, avoiding the vomit. He pulled himself to where his prosthetics lay upon the ground. He grabbed the arm first, and began the contortions necessary to attach it. Staring at the couch in the darkness of the living room, he felt a great sweep of Déjà Vu.
It was happening again.
For a long time, he’d blamed himself for the death of his mother. It had been a Saturday. Four years back from the war and the Veteran’s Administration had decided that it was time for him to stop receiving his medication. So, amidst the constant itching of his phantom limbs and his mind’s need to relive the pain of their loss, Mad Dog 20/20 had become his only respite.
The night before, as Maxom sprawled upon his urine-soaked bed trying to blend in with the darkness and tipping back a bottle of grape flavored redemption, his mother had complained of a headache.
“Maxom, Honey. Why you layin’ in there like that? Why don’t you come out and keep your momma company.”
“Leave me alone, Momma.”
“You gonna spend the rest of your life in there?”
“If I have my way,” he said, scratching another itch with a swig of Mad Dog.
“Come on. Mr. Lawrence Welk is coming on and after that comes Marlin Perkins. You always used to like that show.”
Maxom grinned in the darkness, pushing a cheekful of liquor back and forth with his tongue. He did indeed used to like the show. Every week, he looked forward to watching the two white men adventure forth in his lost homeland, death hiding behind every tree. Who knew when the land might reach out and retaliate against the outrage?
It was a crack-up how Marlin Perkins always seemed to be standing behind a bush or a tree or a vehicle as his trusty side-kick Bob castrated wild water buffalo, tagged the ear of cheetah or helped whelp a hippo. It never failed—when there was an animal involved, Bob was always the bait. And whether it was due to the miracle of modern television or the fact that Bob had a hundred clones, the man seemed to have an almost miraculous ability to remain unscathed.
Maxom, on the other hand, was the poster child for what could happen.
Castrated by a wild water buffalo.
De-legged by a hungry cheetah.
De-armed by the savageness of a momma hippo.
“I’ll pass, Momma.”
“Maxom! You don’t like doin’ nuthin’ no more.”
“Guess not, Momma.”
“You know, there’s gonna be a time when you’ll need to take care of yourself. A time when you’re gonna need to stop feelin’ sorry for yourself and get up and do things.”
“Right, Momma. Will you close the door please? I don’t think I can take listening to Mr. Welk right now.”
The next morning, after an hour of calling her to help him to the bathroom, he finally broke down and did it himself. When he’d finished, he flushed and dropped back to the ground. Grabbing fistfuls of carpet and pushing with the nubs of his legs, he propelled himself into the living room. One Life To Live or As The World Turns or some other crazy daytime drama mumbled from the television. Gripping a leg of the coffee table, he pulled himself farther into the room.
His mother’s feet, encased in black therapeutic shoes, came into view. Her legs were bent at the knees.
“Momma? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
No answer.
He gripped the couch with his hand, flexed his arm and jerked his body up until his chin rested on the worn fabric of the cushions.
She looked like she’d fallen asleep. Her chin rested on her chest. Her hands were on her lap, clasping the slim remote control. Her coke-bottle glasses had slid to the tip of her nose and threatened to fall. Maxom opened his mouth as his eyes filled with tears. He tried to speak but all that came out was a long low croak.
Then she moved. It was miniscule, almost entirely invisible, but Maxom was sure she’d moved. As he tracked the trickle of blood that had seeped from her right ear, he could have sworn he saw her throat pulse. He stared at his mother’s chest, willing it to move. That great billowy chest that had both fed him life and pillowed his tears. He willed it to move. Once. Just once.
And it did.
Dread was replaced by elation. She was alive. He could still save her. In a tantrum of anguish, Maxom rolled and pulled and jerked until his prosth
etics were securely in place. With the impossible strength that allowed mothers to lift refrigerators and small cars in order to save a son, the son maneuvered his mother to the front seat of the pick up. He wedged her in place, belted her in, and stalked around the front of the old Ford. It wasn’t until he was accelerating down the dirt road that the old fear returned.
Of its own accord, his foot slipped off the gas pedal. His hand began to shake. Sweat burst upon his brow. His sight narrowed as darkness moved in until the road was only a pinpoint of light.
Still, even without peripheral vision, even without seeing them with perfect clarity, he knew they were there. Everywhere.
Instruments of torture.
Symbols of hope.
Creators of God.
He was surrounded. As surely as Custer had no exit, neither did he.
Everywhere, their succession assured by the need to communicate, telephone poles chased him. Huge cruciform edifices stationed uniformly along the road ripped by his vision, reminding him of the torture. Dogs chewing. Soldiers sawing. Bugs burrowing. Bernie begging to die as he pretended to be the Jesus he never wanted to be. Nails through his hands. The piercing pain of iron through the meat of each shoulder. Maggots dripping from the wounds. The stench of dead skin, offal and the cauterization of tissue that would never find its original form.
Maxom’s vision contracted to a millimeter gaze. Like a magician, he made the poles disappear. He was his mother’s only hope. He must continue. What he needed was a doctor and a miracle, but to get the latter, she needed the former and the truck was the only way to get there. Even with the imperative to save, his internal engine refused to respond. His foot failed to answer. Maxom begged his limbs to react. He pleaded with his body to cooperate.
The truck finally coasted to a halt at the T intersection that marked the end of his road. To the left was the road to the lake and the chicken plant. To the right was the road to Chattanooga and a hospital. And in front of him, no road that he would ever take—in front of him was a shrine to the dead. Three large white crosses surrounded by flowers stood in the grassed area before a great scarred tree.
He was unable to take his gaze from them, trapped by all that was left of the vibrancy of teenagers after alcohol, speed, the prom, and the immovable hundred year old tree that had severed their link to the living. Trapped by three sets of eyes that stared at him from the pictures nailed to the base of each wooden cross—eyes, accusing, just as Bernie’s had been in those last awful hours before his death.
They found him three hours later, sobbing, his head slamming repeatedly against the old rubber of the steering wheel, his mother stiff with death.
It had taken awhile, but the slow repetitive words of the coroner had finally sunk in and helped him through it. His mother had had a massive stroke. Several in fact, the first creating the impetus for the others as the build-up in her arteries avalanched towards heart and brain. One by one the centers of her brain had been destroyed. Speech. Sight. Hearing. Memory. Movement. All gone in a gerontological maelstrom of misfiring synapses.
“There was nothing you could’ve done,” said the man. “She died immediately, only her body didn’t know it.”
The words didn’t cure, but they were a salve upon a thousand self-mutilations caused by a thousand what-ifs. The coroner had been right, of course. Maxom understood it perfectly. Months in the hospital had made him familiar with all the terms and doctorly devices. But it still hurt. As much as he was a son, as much as he was a man, as much as intellectual reasoning separated him from the animals, he would still carry to his death the belief that If Only.
So there he was standing in the center of his kitchen staring at a particular door, anticipating an encounter. An encounter that would result in the saving of a small hurt boy, or in another If Only to cast upon soul. Maxom gritted his teeth and chewed the inside of his lip until it bled.
You need to face your problems, said every therapist he’d ever been assigned.
By God, if he was going to help the boy he needed to change. There was no waiting until nightfall. The house had never had telephone service. He was the boy’s single hope. He stalked across the small space and grasped the door knob.
There was a cross that he desperately needed to bear.
CHAPTER 7
Thursday—June 14th
The Alexian Brother’s Retreat House
Simon squinted as he stared up at the great cross. Three stories tall, it advertised its Celtic ancestry with recurving arms, the architectural softening almost allowing one to forget that it was upon a simpler, starker version that his God had been crucified.
Following the gravel path, he crossed the small creek that ran from the San Pedro River into a pond they used to help cultivate the grapes. Not only was there plenty of water in this part of the valley, but the lushness of the vegetation belied the fact that this was truly desert. Not ten miles from where he walked, a blade of grass was diamond-rare. Tombstone was a dust town and if Bisbee and Sierra Vista hadn’t been huddled against the base of mountains, they would have blown away long ago. So lush was the ground around the Retreat House the only cacti located on the property were those sold at the visitor’s center for $9.95.
Pecan trees bordered this section of the walk. Here and there people could be seen gathering the nuts into white wicker baskets. Some were volunteers, others were on paid Hermitages. On occasion, a tour group would come and stay for a few days, usually a dozen or so older people who wished they’d saved enough money for the Holy Land and were trying really hard not to look disappointed.
Still, there were always enough people to manage the hundred and fifty acres of property, and this above all else, allowed him to get out and help people in the community. He came to a branching of paths and took the right track which would eventually lead him to the vineyard. Initially the path ran along the small two-lane highway. Instead of interrupting thoughts, the occasional growl of a passing vehicle stimulated him.
In the Gulf War there’d never really been any silence. Always there were the far away thumps of artillery, the droning of aircraft, and the squeaking of tank tracks upon the sand. He’d grown used to noise and found it far more friendlier than silence.
Silence had as much to do with death as the coiled and charred corpses in the bunker.
He came to the Northern edge of the property where the path turned away from the road. Instead of continuing, he paused. Two thin white crosses marked the spot where a young boy and girl had died in a car accident.
The Native Americans had a different spin on the roadside cross. Their belief was similar to Christians’. All along the roads of the Southwest, whether hidden in a forgotten grotto or prominent at a major intersection, were symbols of this belief. White crosses serving as symbols of love, loss and hope, planted and revered by a definitely pagan belief in place. On the surface, the belief that a person’s soul resided at the place of death was simple and quaint, but if one were to dig deeper, it was soon realized that the empty cruciforms indicated a dedication to a belief that neither Heaven nor Hell existed.
Which was a definitively un-Christian belief.
So different from what they professed in public—these private tribal beliefs. Simon wondered how many people from Iowa or Kansas or Maine drove through the Southwestern deserts saw the forlorn crosses beside the side of the road and thought they meant the same thing as the ones back in their own hometowns.
As if the symbol of a cross was universal.
Pulling out his rosary, Simon knelt and prayed for two souls. When he stood half an hour later, there were tears in his eyes. He turned away from the road and headed into the vineyard. Why was it that whenever he saw a cross outside of a church, it was almost always due to tragedy? Why wasn’t it because of love? Why couldn’t the symbol of his religion be one that engendered hope instead of carrying memories of murder and desecration? It was almost as if the sign of the cross was meant to scare people away rather than draw them in.<
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Simon found himself thinking of Billy Bones and the Dirty Bird’s giant circle of cross-like saguaro and how they’d reminded him of scarecrows. Scarecrow Gods, he’d called them. He smiled to himself. No, certainly not Gods. He’d just been caught up in the moment, impressed with their grandeur and Billy Bones’ ingenuity in making them speak.
In a church the cross was benign. There was something about the hallowed walls and the sanctity of the interior that made one forget the malice and the agony inherent in the symbol. Outside, without the warm enamel of civilization, the story was completely different. A person would think that the mere presence of a cross in the wild would be enough to make oneself turn and flee. The symbol had never been able to live down its terrible origins. Like scarecrows, the crucified stood as a warning to others of what could be. Harbingers of terror, Christians fled as fast as crows in a Midwestern corn field at the site of a person nailed to wood.
And to think it was the symbol of a loving God.
Simon shook his head and continued on.
* * *
Sierra Vista, Arizona
Billy stalked the side of the road daring the metal monsters to stop him. Dragons each, he knew their weak spots and was willing to fight them in order to complete his mission. He was undefeatable, a warrior of the dead, champion of the forgotten.
They called him crazy, but that’s only because they didn’t understand. They feared for their safety, but that’s only because of his disguise.
Billy Bones was the great pretender. He’d fooled the world. With his Don Quixote camouflage, he stumbled and rambled and mumbled so even the most discerning expert thought of padded cells and extra-long-sleeve jackets. More importantly, he was fooling the voices. For it was the voices that presented the most danger. That is if he listened to them—if he couldn’t drown out their noise.
