Under the gore, Ghaith saw the name stenciled on the blouse:
LAWSON.
"Is this where you're taking me?" Lawson asked as Ari slowed in front of the Virginia War Memorial. "I don't think they've started engraving the names from Enduring Lost Cause, yet."
"I'm taking you to another lost cause," said Ari, who had finally gotten around to reading up on the American Civil War. When Ari turned left, Lawson groused:
"Now why in hell are you taking me to Oregon Hill? You know what the bumper sticker around here said while I was growing up? 'Oregon Hill, That Better Be A Tan.' And those crackers meant it, too."
"We're going to Hollywood Cemetery. You told me you took your son there."
"I could defend myself back then."
"You still can, from what I've seen."
"You obviously haven't encountered a barrel of crackers." Glancing from side to side, he noted a handful of VCU students on the street. "Cold must be keeping the jubilation crowd inside."
Ari finally slowed down when he passed through the tall gate—though not out of any misplaced reverence for the dead, whom he held in as low esteem as the living. The lanes curbed too tightly to go faster than ten miles an hour.
"All right, you're taking me to see Jeff Davis. I can see that. Want to tell me why?"
"When you spoke about him to me, I noticed you were greatly agitated. You still fear him."
"Whoa there, Ari. If that Dixie goon was still alive and I met him in a dark alley, I'd crack open his skull and feed his brain to the poor starving dogs."
"But he has long been beyond such vengeance. It is his ghost you fear."
"I didn't know alleged Italians were into pop psychology."
"I'm unfamiliar with that field," Ari confessed, pulling into Confederate Circle. "However, we must deal with the heroes of the past."
"Jefferson Davis was no hero. He defended slavery."
"Why should that make him less a hero?" Ari asked. "We have all defended something that, if you look closely, has darker aspects."
"Some aspects are darker than others," said Lawson, tapping his undamaged cheek. "On the other hand, I don't know much about you, if anything. Maybe you condone slavery."
"There are many forms of enslavement."
"I mean the kind we had here, in the South, whips and chains and durance without end."
Ari turned off his engine and was silently thoughtful.
"They outlawed teaching slaves to read in the old South," said Lawson.
"Ah," said Ari. "That is the crime."
"'The' crime? You have a peculiar outlook on things, Ari."
"Let's get out of the car."
"Why?" said Lawson, nodding at the statue. "I can see Jeff's ugly mug fine from here."
"I have learned that if I put myself in some discomfort and look at something from an unexpected angle..."
"Yes?"
"It helps clear the spider's filaments from my head."
"Thinking outside the box, you mean. You should grow out of idiotic notions like that. I'm not getting out of this box. You want to turn the heat back on?"
Ari took the bottle of Jack Daniels out of his pocket and swished the contents. "If you want to partake of any of this, you'll have to follow me."
He got out of the car.
"Leave the key!" Lawson shouted across the driver seat. "Let me at least turn on the heat while you're ghost-hunting. I won't drive off. I can't! Not in this thing."
Ari shut the door and strode over to the statue. The dreary cold had suppressed tourists and graveside visitors, imposing a serene stillness on the cemetery. The warmth the car had established in his coat scurried through the folds before fleeing into space. He took out the bottle, uncapped it, and saluted the statue in front of him.
The door slammed behind him and the angry thumping of Lawson's cane approached.
"All right, give me a swig and let's go."
"'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven'."
"Where did you hear that crap?"
"I just read it," said Ari, nodding at the inscription on the plinth. He waited for Lawson to adjust the cane in his prosthetic hand, then gave him the bottle. Lawson took a swig and returned it.
"There. Now let's move out of here."
"But you're neglecting our host."
"Right." Lawson turned to the monument. "Hi, Jeff. Bet that hellfire-roasted corn on the cob is first-rate. Glad to see you enjoying yourself." He touched the side of his head. "There, I've paid due honor to my enemy. Let's scoot."
"The cold is good for your inflammation," said Ari.
"I'll put an ice back on my jaw when I get home, which should be in about twenty minutes from yesterday if you drive the way you usually do."
Ari walked around the statue and retreated a short distance up the circle. He stepped off the road.
"Where are you going?" Lawson fretted.
"Up there." Ari lifted his gloved hand at a sharp ridge overlooking the circle. Choosing a route between two mausoleums, he began to climb.
"Now you're double-shitting me."
Ari held up the bottle. "I know you want more than just one sip."
"You hear about drunks freezing to death in ditches, but not in a graveyard, only fifty feet from a warm car."
"This is not a death march. Only a scouting mission."
He continued his climb. Moribund decorative bushes and uneven ground suggested visitors rarely came this way. In fact, never.
"Very scenic!" Ari called down to Lawson, who had not moved.
"I'm sure they taught you about your great Italian poets back in Sicily."
"Naturally," said Ari, forcing himself through shrubbery half his height.
"Your teachers must have gone on and on about Petrarch. He was one of the first men to climb mountains just for the view. Up to then, people looked at nature for what it is."
"And what is it?"
"A shithole. Now will you come back down here?"
"I have not yet achieved my objective."
"Which is...?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Ari, piercing the bushes with a grunt.
"Looking better and better," Lawson shouted. "You're familiar with the phrase 'men in white coats'?"
"I have met many doctors."
"Not as many as me." Lawson surveyed the ascent. "Hard getting up there?"
"Not terribly."
"I guess all that grunting must be coming from a pig in the bushes somewhere."
"Such is to be assumed."
"If you can hardly make it up there, what do you think my chances are?"
"Minimal, at best." Ari stopped and looked down at the circle. "I'd say this is the equivalent of two stories."
"Three," said Lawson. "Of course, if you'd moved twenty or so yards to the left, you would have seen the big-ass road that goes right up there. You're not stupid and blind, by any chance?"
Ari found a spot that was perilously uncongenial and sat. He slipped the bottle out of the bag and waved it at Lawson.
"Mr. Jefferson looks very small from here."
"So do I," Lawson shot back. He hobbled to the base of the hill and stared at the stiff grass, as though looking for beaver traps. He glanced at the road to his left, then shook his head. Muttering, he began to climb.
"You are doing marvelously," Ari acclaimed from his perch.
"A regular one-legged mountain goat," said Lawson.
"I didn't catch what you said."
"You'll hear well enough when I get up there and brain you with my cane."
He came to a rocky outcrop and tried to raise his good leg over it. Hidden behind some holly bushes, Ari could not see what triggered a new raft of oaths.
"What is it, my friend?"
"My fucking leg is coming off. These fucking ivy vines won't let go."
"Adjust and continue."
"Colonel Fuck-Me-in-the-Ass, may I ask permission to call off this attack
? Sir?"
"The objective must be taken at all costs."
"You should have been a DI in Basic."
"I am a hard taskmaster," Ari agreed.
"Kind of stupid, too..."
It took Lawson several minutes to work his way over the outcrop. He felt the prosthetic leg straps through his trousers. They seemed secure, but he couldn't be sure.
"Man, I'm sorry Rhee's in the can."
"I am sure there are other importers of wise limbs," said Ari.
"At what price?" Lawson forced his way through some bushes and swore.
"What is it now, my friend?"
"I just noticed that I'm not even halfway up. If you're really Sicilian, you must be acclimated to hot weather. Bet you're freezing your pasta-filled ass up there."
"The pasta froze long ago."
"I think I have all the evidence I need of your sharp intellect."
"Levity suits you," Ari remarked from beyond an unkempt tangle of rose bushes.
"Levity...levity...I could use some levitation now..." When Ari chuckled in appreciation of the pun, Lawson added: "You won't think it's so funny if you have to carry me back down."
"A simple push off this cliff will suffice."
"Levity..."
Ari heard an odd-sounding snap, like a rubberized branch breaking, followed by a howl of anguish.
"You require assistance?" he called out.
"Fuck-you-leave-me-alone!" Lawson swore as a single word. There was more thrashing about just beyond Ari's sight. He took another swig.
Lawson's head finally rose up, looking grimmer than at the A-Zed shootout. Even the glass eye seemed to blaze with wrath. His trousers were torn and there was dirt on his coat. He fell down next to Ari and demanded the bottle. Ari obliged.
Gingerly, unable to wrap his frozen half-lips around the mouth, Lawson sipped with the care of a gold miner counting grains of dust.
"What I'll do for good whiskey," he said finally.
"You have a bottle of the same vintage in your dining room," said Ari.
Lawson grunted. "I forgot how observant you are...obvious graveyard roads excepted."
"No great power of observation is needed to see a bottle of Tennessee's Best," said Ari. "What is more problematic is determining why you would go to so much trouble to come up here to have some of mine."
"Got any theories?" Lawson half-smirked. "You think I'm fully capable of confronting all my fears? Am I a big boy, now?"
"Or you are so terrified that following me up here was your only option?"
"You sound like all the shrinks they lined up for me and their paychecks back at the VA. Let's say I'm a functional fear addict. Most people are. And don't hand me any crap about identifying one's fears and eliminating them one by one. If that worked, you might as well go ahead and get a lobotomy, save the time and effort." He chuckled harshly as he again lifted the bottle. "I lost a few centimeters of brain surface back in the Sandbox. Maybe I'm cured and don't even know it."
"Your self-awareness is a lesson to everyone," Ari nodded.
Lawson finished his gulp and handed the bottle back to Ari. He fished out his pack of cigarettes. "No one appreciates anyone else's self-awareness. From the outside, we all still look like idiots. Unless you're Brad Pitt, of course."
"People are under the misconception that I'm an Arab," Ari said. "I can't imagine why."
"It's all surface. And by the way, if you really believe that, you're an idiot. Are you misconstruing me on purpose?"
"Like you, I see things in fragments. There is no grand design to comprehend and...misconstrue? Interesting word."
"That sort of leaves God out of the picture."
"If there is a god shuffling behind the scenes, he is hiding his head in shame."
"Over half my male relatives are preachers," Lawson laughed. "If they knew I was listening to someone like you they'd condemn me to eternal hellfire."
"Just for listening?"
"Just for listening. You see, we American's haven't got anything on the mullahs." Lawson shrugged. "And if they knew what I was thinking personally, on my own, without listening to anyone..."
"And what do you think?"
"We're protoplasm, we're DNA, we're creatures that think we're thinking. I know whereof I speak. I've seen plenty of my own protoplasm splattered around. Would the world be a better place if we all faced up to the facts? I couldn't tell you. I just don't know." He paused, squinting against a flash of sunlight reflecting off the river below. "You know the theory of relativity? Energy and mass and so forth?"
"I believe I've heard of it," said Ari.
"But have you thought about it? If you stuck enough energy into us, we'd turn into light. We'd return to our beginning. But when light goes bad, it curdles. That's all we are. Bad light."
Stretching out, Ari leaned on his elbow.
"What's that?" Lawson said in alarm.
"What?"
"On your ankle."
"Oh...a frivolous bit of jewelry. I believe you call them slave bracelets. We Italians are a frivolous people, addicted to adornment."
"That's an ankle monitor."
"How did that get there?" Ari cried, as though he had discovered a leech sucking his blood.
"How long have you been wearing it?" Lawson asked brusquely. "Since before I met you?"
"Only a few days," said Ari contritely.
"And that pair of goofballs who have been following us across town…?"
"Goofballs?"
"In the Civic, parked on the overlook behind that crypt. Are they part of this?"
No doubt Karen and Fred, watching from the warmth of the car, must wonder beyond wonder what the hell Ari was up to. Karen would get in his face and demand an explanation. He was already concocting some suitable blather about Lawson being a former member of military intelligence. Of course none of this came up when they looked into Lawson's file. It was top secret! Ari comforted himself with the outrage this would stir in Karen's psyche.
"I assumed they were a loving couple," said Ari.
"I spotted you for a born liar the first instant I laid eyes on you," Lawson scoffed.
"I am dismayed you have such a low opinion of me."
"Just the opposite. Some of my best former friends were chronic liars. My former wife, for one." He squinted at the Civic. "Those are cops."
"They are interested parties."
"And why are they interested in you?"
"Because I'm so interesting."
"Fuck you. Give me the bottle." He took a drink. "Are they dangerous?"
"Those two?" Ari chuckled.
"I mean, can I lose my license by associating with you? Even protoplasm has to make a living."
"I don't think they'll bother you," said Ari. "The electronic chain is limited to my own person."
"Making yourself out to be slave," Lawson sneered. "That's bogus."
"You still haven't done what I asked you up here for," Ari said, cocking his head at Jefferson Davis.
"I looked at him. So what? He's even smaller from here. Is that the point of all this exercise?"
"Give it a few more moments."
"Give what a few moments?"
"There's a certain chemistry in the odd angle, the objective view."
"You're right. I'm warmer. It's a miracle."
"It's Jack Daniels."
"Right..."
"Mr. Davis had many ailments that he had to fight through," said Ari with a day's worth of erudition.
"He committed crimes against humanity," was Lawson's assessment.
"What nation hasn't?"
"In the scheme of things, America isn't so bad. And don't throw the Indians in my face. That was a long time ago."
"As was slavery."
"Don't cross swords with me on this one," Lawson scowled. "Chapter and verse on slavery runs a few million pages, and the bottle will run out long before I could finish."
"I was thinking of more recent actions," Ari observed. "Europeans are well
apprised of this nation's crimes."
"Like Italy hasn't committed any?"
"We murdered Christ," Ari shrugged.
"You're a real gem." He stared down at Confederate Circle as he drank slowly. After musing a long moment, he said, "Is this magical thing you expect me to see impossible to put into words?"
"If I could have put it into words, I would not have wasted your time bringing you here," said Ari.
"Well...either I've already had too much to drink, which I find hard to believe..."
"Yes?"
"I think I...feel...I don't know what the hell I feel."
"It's a puzzling sensation," Ari said. "Those who travel with open minds often feel it."
"Your friends are leaving."
Karen drove her car slowly around the circle below them, making a show of her presence and of her voluntary departure. Ari interpreted it as a sign of good will, although she might simply have been trying to get on his nerves. Fred had warned him in advance that they might tail him.
"We want to make sure the damn thing works once you get out of the car and walk around."
The 'damn thing' being the ankle bracelet, since there was already a GPS in the xB.
"It's a disassociation from reality," said Lawson abruptly.
"What is?"
"This little trick of yours. It's like being an actor in a movie, then stepping off the screen and looking back without all the clutter of a storyline."
"It can have that effect," Ari nodded. "It can turn you into wallpaper at a party."
"You probably mean 'wallflower'. I don't attend many parties, anymore. You know, Ari, we might consider moving on before hypothermia sets in." Lawson gave his leg a shake. "Might be too late, already. This cold snap has gone way beyond the 'snap' phase. I'm beginning to think it's permanent."
Ari absorbed this in the metaphysical sense and shuddered. "Those young people who tried to kill you…they weren't evil."
"Right, someone held a gun to their head," Lawson grunted.
"And threatened their families, too. In fact, they got into trouble because they were trying to do the right thing. Morally, they were impeccable."
Cold Snap Page 42
