Under-Heaven

by Tim Greaton

  The hand was moving down now to massage Danny's shoulder. His young mind shuddered with revulsion.

  "I am your Father, Daniel. It is to me and me alone that you owe allegiance."

  Danny wanted to scream that this was not his father. That his father was a gentle man who had been weakened by bankruptcy and duped by fanatics. That his father had been taken away the day they entered the commune: "To promote Godly consciousness, and to free minds of family strife."

  Danny shivered at the memory. His father's eyes had been so sad—

  "Do you repent, Daniel?" The smell of alcohol was strong on Saint Thomas's breath.

  Danny forced himself to nod. He dared not say or reveal any of the things he felt. But, though he tried, he could not stop tears from escaping to his cheeks. "What can I do," Danny said between clenched teeth, "to show I'm sorry?"

  The question was pointless because rough hands had already pushed his cotton pants down, and a large finger was now prodding at his rear orifice, which was still painfully inflamed—

  "Uhhh!" Dan woke, bolted upright in bed!

  His heart was pounding, and the taste of bile was in his mouth. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and leaned back against the dirty wall of his combination bedroom, living room and kitchen. He ran fingers through his greasy brown hair.

  Will I ever be free?

  "Thirty-one years pass, and I'm still dreaming about that bastard."

  Dan reached over and grabbed a pack of generic cigarettes from the battered table beside his bed. He tapped the pack on the back of his wrist, drew one out and shoved it between dry, chapped lips. A package of Denny's courtesy matches served as a light, and it wasn't until he had drawn three deep inhalations that the tension began to seep from his neck and shoulders.

  Sunlight was streaming in from around the edges of the dark green shades that hung in the only two windows in the place, and since the motel unit faced west...Looking over at the digital alarm that Jenny had bought him for Christmas, Dan confirmed that it was the afternoon sun he was seeing; which in turn meant that he was going to be late to pick her up for the group meeting; which further meant they would be asked to speak as soon as they walked through the door—sort of a punishment for intrusion and tardiness.

  "Hell, why not just grab a fifth and stay home?" he grumbled, but the comment was half-hearted. He didn't finish the cigarette, instead crushing it into the overflowing ashtray and hurrying to pick up a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt from the mess on the floor. He slipped into the clothes and pulled on his only shoes, a pair of scuffed hiking boots with thick black soles. Then, he grabbed his trench coat from the back of the single armchair in the room and stepped out onto the cracked concrete step of the motel he'd been existing in for over three years now.

  It was warm, over sixty degrees anyway, and he was two blocks down Overton Avenue when he remembered he hadn't combed his hair. He had washed it four days ago, so at least it wouldn't be too greasy. He combed his fingers habitually through the tangled mass, then raked them through his thick beard. Messy hair was one thing but having garbage caught in your beard just wasn't good for a guy's image. His ex-wife used to complain about his personal hygiene, and he remembered he'd always gotten defensive about it. He never had told her about those seven months in the commune, hadn't explained how he could only clean himself when Saint Thomas had "Holy Need" of him. Since then bathing had carried with it a subliminal message that made his stomach turn.

  Dan decided to walk the extra three blocks to McDonald's so he could look himself over in the bathroom mirror, an experience that was not new to him. Three and a half years ago, public rest rooms had been his only indoor experiences. Then, seeing something in him that he hadn't seen in himself, Jenny's father had offered him a job as janitor at the Baptist Elementary School. Now, three years and a battle with alcoholism later, he was at least on an upward track.

  After McDonald's, Dan started toward Jen's place. It was almost a half mile's walk through some of Pittsburgh's toughest neighborhoods. And this was the time of day that the city's finest hung out their windows, off their porches and around on street corners. Dan had lived in this same Pennsylvania city for the last fifteen years, since he was thirty. But it wasn't until five years ago when he'd lost his job at the fire station (and when Jill threw him out) that he'd seen the true heart of the world he'd always thought of as near paradise. Sure, he'd been to hundreds of fires, and some in the most rat- and roach-infested buildings that had ever graced the inner city, but he'd since discovered that racing into burning buildings with adrenaline roaring through your system just wasn't the same as taking a leisurely stroll through those same slums. Oh, the adrenaline still flowed...but for other reasons.

  Once on the streets, it had taken Dan only a few months to learn most of what he needed to survive in the urban wilderness, and what he hadn't learned had come to him in short bursts of need-driven inspiration—the way primordial survival has always worked. Now, hurrying toward Jen's, he was using one of his first lessons.

  In this part of town, neighborhood racial lines were as clear as the sharply drawn lines of a county map, and he was well into the three Puerto Rican blocks between Sixth and Joffrey. Dan glared at the cracked pavement in front of him and, as he had been taught, relived his and Jill's last fight—the one where he found her in bed with someone else. Like a drop of blood spilled into a tank of piranha, the memory of the other woman smiling at him from his own sheets whipped Dan's mind into a frenzy of pure rage. And this rage fueled the facial expressions of loathing and hatred that were to be his shield through the land of Spics.

  "Think of something that makes you angry," a bartender had once told him. "If you look 'bad' enough, you just might live to see the end of the street."

  It was only two more blocks to Jenny's. Though he did try to maintain the angry look, as he got closer to the building Dan allowed the memories of Jill and her girlfriend to fade. Most of the locals knew him as a friend of Jenny's.

  A group of teenage boys stood on the corner across from him. He heard one say, "There's Abraham Lincoln," a comment he was used to. Then another yelled something in Spanish that Dan interpreted as "Go suck an old sweater". Somehow he suspected that he'd misunderstood.

  He had just reached Jenny's front steps when dizziness overcame him. Before he could reach out for the railing, his vision went black.

  4

  Rochester, New York: Sedge felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the valley beneath his ribs when he awoke on the kitchen floor of his small apartment. A putrid smell filled his nostrils. For a moment he wondered if his malnourished, under-exercised, and basically neglected body was finally giving out on him. Of all the horrors he could have envisioned—daggers dipped in blood, limbs being brutally ripped from their sockets—he would never have imagined that a heart attack would be the cause of his own death. He started to chuckle and a fresh bolt of pain bit into his rib cage.

  He gasped and rolled over onto his back. The pain miraculously disappeared.

  He looked to the floor beside him, saw his Bible lying there and wondered if it was as pleased as he to no longer have his body crushing it into the hard floor. Sedge turned his attention upward. The light seemed strangely diffuse, like that of a dream, and he was almost convinced it was a dream when he discerned a thick, grey mist between him and the ceiling.

  The pot! he realized.

  He scrambled awkwardly to his feet and pushed the heavy pan away from the burner. He heard a sizzling sound and winced from the painful burn he'd received on his palm. The foul smog caused him to break into a fit of coughs. He retreated to the floor and drew in what little oxygen the lower level offered. He'd been lucky (he glanced to the Bible) to fall asleep on the floor and not on the couch or his bed. Surely, the urine vapor would have killed him.

  Sedge crawled to the living room, forced open all three windows and was somewhat surprised to see a dark sky and the few lights that only an early morning in Rochester could bring. He'd b
een asleep for a long time. He hung his head out the window.

  Vanessa was stretched out seductively on the cigarette billboard, which was on the roof of the four-story building across the street. Sedge had never seen the girl in any other ad, and didn't really know who she was. She did, however, remind him of Vanessa Williams, the woman who had lost her Ms. America title because of nude photos. He stared at the billboard for a while longer. It wasn't that he fantasized about being with her, something he couldn't convince himself of, even in a fantasy (after all, she probably weighed more than he did, and she was alluringly thin). No, it was just that she had become an imaginary friend, someone he could talk to without fearing she'd be dead in the morning.

  "Do you think it worked?" he asked her, his words coming out in puffs of condensation.

  She stared back at him with soft, friendly eyes.

  "I hope so," he told her. "I really, really hope so."

  Finally, when the cold October air became more uncomfortable than the memory of the fetid odor inside, he drew himself back in. The writhing smoke had dwindled to a light haze. Unfortunately, the stench seemed stronger.

  A thought occurred to him just then, sitting there on the edge of the couch. It was conceivable that he was truly free of Ichabod, that he could live a life like other people, that he might not have to fear every phone call or every knock at the door. The concept seemed alien to him. He found the very idea of freedom, true freedom, overwhelming. It would be a luxury that he had never experienced.

  He leaned back against the thin stuffing of the old couch and let his mind drift along with the ecstatic fantasy of personal liberty. He, of course, had no way to know that liberty was to elude him for some time to come.

  5

  Dan's thoughts were fragmented and jumbled. He tried to blink the blurriness from his vision. From a high vantage, he watched Jenny run out the front door of her apartment building and down the six front steps. She pushed her way through the tangle of people that had gathered at the bottom. Dan tried to get a good look at her face, but from this high angle he couldn't see anything but the cloud of tight curls that made up her brunette hair. From here, she looked like one of Jim Henson's all-hair muppets.

  "Move it! Get out of the way!" Jenny screamed as she shoved her way down the last two steps.

  It might have been the urgency in her voice or maybe just that she was an attractive woman, but either way the crowd of mostly young men made room for her. Dan saw her lean over the prone body of some poor slob. He was white by the look of his pale hands.

  "Stupid shit," Dan said to himself. "Honky should know he can't wander around in Spic-land alone."

  "Get an ambulance!" Jenny yelled to anyone who would listen. "Please get an ambulance!"

  But her request came a little late, because Dan could already hear the wailing of sirens from only a few blocks away. He turned to look and, sure enough, the red and blue lights were rushing up the street toward them. People moved away as the police cruiser pulled up along side the curb. The ambulance pulled up at its rear. Both sirens died but the lights continued to flash. Dan blinked; the lights were making him dizzy again.

  Two policemen got out and strode through the pack of people. Dan noticed that, though the officers did manage to push through, the teenage boys had not gone out of their way to make room. The two ambulance attendants, one male, one female, dressed in white uniforms, rushed in behind the police. The male attendant pushed a wheeled stretcher, and the woman carried an orange suitcase.

  Even though the bulk of a Dan's fire education had been in stopping and preventing fires, he also had received substantial medical training. He wished he could go down and help, but was still feeling giddy and his vision was constantly blurring in and out on him.

  The two ambulance attendants knelt down to either side of the prone man. One of them insisted that Jenny move aside. She moved back only two steps.

  Bracing himself for the inevitable sight of blood from a gunshot or knife wound, Dan watched the attendants turn the victim onto his back. A dark red pool of blood lay at the corner of the concrete step.

  Dan was having a hard time focusing. He blinked some of the rough vision away and confirmed that the man was indeed white, and a street person by the look of his unkempt hair and his tangled black beard. But then a strange thing happened, because the longer Dan stared at the man's blurry features the more certain he became: Dan Aldridge was looking down at himself.

  6

  It seemed to Dan like a concert with millions of stoned fans crowding around him, all making noise, all trying to be heard over the background roar of an acid-rock band. Dan felt the jarring sensation of movement and when he opened his eyes, the faces comprising the audience moved past, all million of them in an obscure, fast-moving parade.

  Someone...a woman, was talking to him, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Her voice was soft and familiar, though. He felt a little better.

  7

  Jenny was standing before a snotty, young college brat, fighting unsuccessfully to go with Dan in the ambulance.

  "I'm sorry, Ma'am," the Afro-American girl told her. "We can't allow you to ride without proof that you're related."

  "I told you already," Jen said. "We're close friends and he has no relatives."

  "I'm sorry, but you can't."

  "Oh, yeah?" Jenny said, tears streaking her face. "No matter what you say,—" She cuffed the young woman's arm aside, jumped into the ambulance, and grabbed onto the stainless steel frame of Dan's stretcher with one hand and onto his wrist with the other. "—he ain't going alone!"

  The male attendant smirked and shrugged at his partner. Ms. Snot's sour expression didn't change, but she nodded and disappeared around the side of the van. The next thing Jenny knew, the siren was wailing and they were on their way to the hospital.

  She looked down at Dan. His head was wrapped in a gauze bandage, already soaked through with a spot of blood the size of a fifty-cent piece. His closed eyes and lips were drawn into a wince, and his normally sun-darkened skin was almost as white as the sheet on which he lay.

  "Could you please let go?" the attendant asked.

  Jenny's eyes shifted to look quizzically at him.

  "His wrist, Ma'am. I have to check his pulse."

  She released her grip. The tears were running again, surprising her with the strength of the accompanying emotions. "Don't die," she whispered. "Please don't die."

  CHAPTER TWO

  SQUIRMING

  1

  "I can't make it for dinner tonight, Sedge," Jason said. "Maybe in a day or two. There's just too much going on right now, and I'm a little short on help."

  Sedge nodded, then remembered Jason couldn't see him through the phone. "It's okay. There's a good movie on anyway. Besides, its kind of cold to be going out."

  "That's true." Then an awkward silence.

  "It really is okay, Jason. You're not my baby sitter, you know. God knows, you've done enough for me in this lifetime. I'll never repay you as it is."

  "Uhmmm...there's something else I wanted to talk to you about, Sedge." There was another silence.

  "Sure, go ahead. What is it?"

  "It's just that...if Mr. Landry asks you about the rent...uhhhhh...have him call me, okay?"

  "I have two hundred dollars left in my top drawer, Jason. Should I use that—"

  "No! I mean...no. Just have him call me. That's all. Will you do that?"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Don't worry, buddy. When your Bragdon house sells, you can pay back every cent. Until then, I'll handle it. All right?"

  "Yeah...yeah okay."

  "Have a good night, then."

  "Jason."

  "Ummm."

  "Thanks. Thanks for everything."

  The line went dead.

  Sedge stared at the phone for a long time before returning it to its cradle. He'd been living in Rochester for the past five years, and had only worked the first fifteen months before Kodak laid him of
f. He had collected unemployment for the following six months. But for his last three years here, other than a few short weeks when he had worked at restaurants and the like, Jason had supported him. Jason paid the rent, the utilities, and until recently had even given him a weekly allowance.

  In return, Sedge used to spend a few nights sweeping the factory offices or puttering around at the big house Jason owned in Fairfield. Lately, though, things had changed. Jason never said as much, but Sedge figured business at the mill wasn't going well. Over the past year, Jason didn't need things done as often. At first the weekly checks became bi-weekly. Then once every three. And last month, Sedge got no check at all. His stash was almost drained, taxes were due on the Bragdon house again, and it looked as though Jason wouldn't even be able to pay the rent.

  Sedge knew he had to help, but with his problem it wasn't likely he could find a job. Even if he did, assuming the police didn't try to stop him, any new boss would surely fire him when "it" started to happen again.

  There had to be something he could do, though. In all of Sedge's adult life, he'd enjoyed very few friends—five to be exact. And three of those had become his by default. They had been dedicated to Jason first.

  Since Sedge's mother died, Jason had looked after him, and until very recently had done an exemplary job of it. But now...?

  Sedge felt terrible. He couldn't work in Jason's factory for the same reason he couldn't work any place else. Managers tended to get squeamish when their employees started dying all around them.

  So what could he do?

  For the rest of that sleepless night, Sedge meditated on the problem and by dawn had come up with the only solution that made sense. He spent the morning lugging stacks of occult books and magazines down three flights of stairs and into the basement, where he dumped them into the incinerator. After his self-performed exorcism, he hoped he wouldn't need them anymore.