A Small Matter

by M. M. Wilshire

  “It’s okay, Mary-Jo,” Vickie shouted from somewhere down below, her body already obscured by the thick hillside brush. “Take the Suburban south down the fire road--in about five or six miles, you’ll come out in the hills north of Sunset. Head back to Dalk’s new place and wait for us there.”

  “How will I know where you are?” she said.

  “We’ll call you.”

  “I’m sorry, Dalk” Mary-Jo said. “I hope I’m not disappointing you. Good luck!”

  “I love you!” he shouted. The three most important words on earth echoed up from his position, and greatly helped take up the emotional slack between them.

  A moment passed before the party descending down the well-worn, rooty, deer trail heard the muffled rumble of the Suburban above them--the echoing roar growing fainter until at last they were alone with themselves in the middle of the mountain.

  “Mary-Jo has sold over 300 homes in Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica,” Dalk said. “But she’s never been in these mountains. She’s seen the wilderness, of course, at least the beginnings of it from where it abuts the backyards of rich people’s houses, but she’s never actually been out here personally.”

  “Don’t apologize for Mary-Jo,” Vickie said. “She’s a trooper--we can’t blame her for not wanting to come. She wasn’t dressed for the occasion. Besides, she’s afraid of snakes.”

  “They’re all hibernating,” Toyama said.

  “What difference does it make what the slimy things are doing?” Vickie said. “When you’re scared of snakes, you’re scared of snakes--it doesn’t matter if they’re underground--in fact, that makes it even more frightening, knowing they’re somewhere underneath your feet, waiting to spring out at you from their slick little holes.”

  “Back to the subject at hand,” Dalk said, his breathing labored as he carefully picked his steps, “do we have a plan, here, or were you simply planning to force me to wander through the mountains forever with Mulroney on my back--which, I might add, I can’t keep up much longer, no matter how much meditation I’ve practiced. And may I say, Mary-Jo was right--the way those low clouds are closing in, we’re going to be caught in another downpour. I don’t want Mulroney’s blankets to get wet.”

  “I know where I’m going,” Vickie said. “And don’t worry about the rain--we’re going to a nice, dry cave--can you keep going a little farther without collapsing?”

  “I can make it to the bottom, if I’m careful,” Dalk said. “And maybe a little further after that.”

  “There’s a Chumash Indian site at the bottom of this ravine,” Vickie said. “It’s a place Jack and I used to come all the time when we really wanted to get away from it all. Not many people know about it--it’s got a waterfall, and a cave behind the waterfall--we can hide from the rain behind it. We’ll make Mulroney comfortable in the cave. If we get hungry, we might find a few steelhead trout in the stream.”

  “Steelhead trout in the middle of L.A.?” Toyama said.

  “The good news is,” Dalk said, “we’ll probably make it to the cave before the rain starts falling. The bad news is, we could find ourselves washed out to sea by a raging flash flood at any time after it starts falling.”

  “I think we’re alone,” Toyama said. “I don’t think that CHP ever saw us make the turnoff. He’s probably chasing his tail. He doesn’t know where we are.” Toyama struggled to keep up, he being in charge of the leashed Maine Coon, said beast not buying the idea of a linear descent to the bottom but choosing instead the ancient, safer method of jumping behind every bush before proceeding, and requiring a fair amount of leash untangling and coaxing to continue to the next one.

  “We better hurry if we want to make the cave,” Vickie said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  The party of four, plus cat, scurried down the trail, engulfed by the universality and impartiality of the wilderness world, the roar of the stream bed growing louder as they neared the bottom, the rushing water offering to them its indiscriminate invitation, not asking what they were up to, or expecting anything from them, its cushioning sound enabling them to focus on something besides the rampant anxiety each of them felt for their comatose friend, who, separated from them by the uncrossable gulf of unconsciousness, accepted their assistance and their agenda without judgment, or any other thing.

  Chapter 36

  “Apparently, the Chumash, when they sat around their fire at night,” Dalk said, “drank a lot of Bud Light. I find that surprising, because I always thought they lived off the land.”

  The cave behind the waterfall, accessed easily across a pathway of well-placed boulders, the room being itself of a decent size, and presently dry and uninhabited, in addition to serving as the repository for several hundred crushed, empty beer cans, also served as a venue for visiting graffiti artists, who, perhaps while sitting by the fire and singing the traditional Chumash folk songs, suddenly sensed the need for something greater and thus created the high-color ethereal gobbledygook which covered every exposed surface.

  “It was never like this when Jack and I used to come here,” Vickie said.

  “That was before all-terrain vehicles,” Dalk said. “Now any punk can come here.”

  The roar of the falls feeding the wellspring of the canyon stream, now swollen from the recent rains, had a lyrical quality to it which lifted the spirits of the group, lessening among them the feeling of being separate from one another and encouraging feelings of interconnectedness with all things as each individual began to feel their emotions gently coaxed into line with the timeless music of the water--in short, it was a great place to hang out, and, weather permitting, resurrect somebody.

  “Give me that gun,” Dalk said. Vickie handed it over--he took it, fitting it into his belt.

  Toyama stirred the fire pit and upon finding a few dry branches in the back of the cave, aided additionally by a few discarded cardboard beer boxes, proceeded to light a fire, helped in the process by a gold Zippo. Kilkenney, upon seeing the flames rise, hissed and danced upon his leash until Vickie, having pity, cradled him in her arms, stroking him soothingly.

  Dalk carefully cleared space beside the fire and laid Mulroney gently out, carefully adjusting the blankets to ensure his friend’s warmth and comfort.

  Vickie set Kilkenney on his feet. “That’s it,” she said. “I’m setting him free. From now on, no more leash, no more cage--no more civilization.”

  The cat poised without moving, sniffing the air briefly, waiting for enough information, his heavy cerebellum processing the million-or-so possible previously genetically stored responses to being held captive in a cave with four people who’d built a fire. The calculation complete, he sprang forward, exiting the cave in the speed of an eye-blink without saying good-bye.

  “I’ll miss him,” Vickie said. “He was the heart and soul of Mulroney. Those two were each one of a kind--big, powerful, but capable of true tenderness--and misunderstood by the world around them.”

  “I’m calling Mary-Jo,” Dalk said, unholstering his phone and leaving the cave.

  “I had my doubts up there on the road,” Vickie said to Toyama. “I started to feel that I was running away from my problems. I almost decided that we should take Mulroney back to the hospital and turn him over to Dr. Lerner and let fate take its course. What scared me was the thought that we might be doing more harm than good by taking Mulroney away from the hospital environment. I mean, what if his system crashes? There’s nobody here who can bring him back.”

  “Everybody has a time to die,” Toyama said. “Until that time, nobody can take your life. When that time comes, nobody can save it. This society lives under a delusion that we are separate from one another--the truth is, we’re all connected. We’re all made from the same stardust. The idea that doctors save us is a way we have of saying that we can cheat death if we want to--but it’s not so, so stop worrying about the choice you made. Whether Mulroney lives or dies isn’t up to us--it’s up to God.”

  “Thank you,” Vickie
said. “I know you and I haven’t been all that close over the years, but I think I’m starting to appreciate your point of view.”

  “That being said,” Toyama replied, “with your permission, I must get to work.” With that, the little man began rummaging in his bag, producing, among other things, a series of shiny golden amulets, some colored feathers, a roll of aluminum foil and--as a piece de resistance--a large, gallon-size clear plastic Ziploc bag which contained three dead rats coated in cooking oil, the disgusting sight of which aroused within Vickie the acute dislike she felt for all vermin, living or dead.

  “I’m going outside to scream bloody murder,” she said, “and then to hurl.”

  Toyama paid her no mind, his attentions focused on the job at hand--a miracle, one sorely needed by Mulroney, no matter what the source, a feat requiring the full harnessing of the thaumaturgical practices of his religion in the face of his skeptical company. He did not blame them for their skepticism towards his magic--they were, after all, possessed by the evil spirits of Western technology and scientific thinking, and could not therefore be expected, while under the influence of such powerful illusions, to understand the true nature of the wily fox before him.

  Chapter 37

  “How’s Mary-Jo?” Vickie said.

  “Worried,” Dalk said, slipping his phone into his shirt pocket. “She’s not going home--instead she’s driving over to the hospital to talk with Dr. Lerner--I advised her against it, but she insisted. I fear she’ll be arrested if she identifies herself with our abduction efforts, but she wants to try and negotiate something with the Medical Center so we won’t all go to prison for the rest of our lives.”

  She’d caught up with her brother, who’d wandered a dozen yards or so down the stream bank to a spot where, in times past, somebody’d had a house and garden, of which still remained half a brick fireplace covered in a thick tangle of climbing roses.

  “I bet a hundred years ago this was a great place to have a home,” Dalk said.

  “I guess we both know Mulroney isn’t going to make it,” Vickie said.

  “Where’s your faith?” Dalk said.

  “I realized the truth when I saw your sensei pull out a baggie full of rats,” she said.

  “Never reject a possibility because you don’t agree with the method used to obtain it,” he said.

  They both sniffed the air at once, their nostrils assailed by the smell of burning hair.

  “He’s foil-roasting them over the fire,” Dalk said. “He thinks if he cooks them properly, the evil fox spirit will come out of Mulroney to feast on them.”

  “It’ll never work,” Vickie said.

  “Maybe it will,” Dalk said. “In Japan, they do this kind of thing all the time. After it’s over, they write out the testimony of the healing and pass it around. I’ve read some amazing testimonies.”

  “I should go in there and stop it,” Vickie said. “He’s stripping Mulroney of the last of his dignity.”

  “Toyama deserves his chance,” Dalk said. “He’s sacrificing more than any of us today to be here. We’ve taken steps that’ll undoubtedly incur a police investigation--when that happens, I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of my sensei.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever wonder why Toyama came to L.A. with me?” Dalk said. “Why he’s been willing to live in the back room of a dingy commercial storefront dojo in Panorama City for all these years?”

  “I thought he had to because he’s got no head for business,” Vickie said.

  “Toyama's an outlaw,” Dalk said. “He’s wanted by the Japanese police. That’s why we left Japan--he killed a guy--the guy was somebody important. When the PD checks us out for kidnapping Mulroney and evading the CHP, Toyama will be sent back to Japan to face a kangaroo court--he’ll spend the rest of his life in a Japanese prison.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vickie said. “I had no idea. Why did he kill the man?”

  “Toyama was asked to perform a ceremony for a politician’s sick wife. He got there too late, the wife had already died, and the politician’s son pulled a knife on him. Unfortunately, Toyama hit him in the mouth a little too hard and the guy croaked. Toyama can’t forgive himself for not exercising more control.”

  “He acted in self-defense,” Vickie said.

  “He killed a politician’s first-born son,” Dalk said. “In a case like that, there is no defense. He tried to repay his debt to the family by turning over all the money he’d made over the years, but the father wanted blood repaid with blood. He was going to let them arrest him until I convinced him to get out. He’s been living in a self-imposed exile and poverty ever since, trying to purify himself--what makes it worse is, his magic left him when he killed the guy--until his magic returns, he’ll never be free of his guilt.”

  “I feel like a fool,” Vickie said. “I’m ashamed of the way I’ve made fun of him all these years.”

  “He came with us today to help Mulroney because you’re my sister--he’s risking his future to help you--that’s why you shouldn’t interrupt him. If Mulroney revives, Toyama will be set free.”

  “The poor little man--he’s in there right now,” Vickie said, “roasting his mice and waving his golden amulets over Mulroney’s body.”

  “If Mulroney expires,” Dalk said, “Toyama will take on all the guilt for it--he’ll probably commit suicide--it’ll be the only way he can expunge the guilt honorably.”

  “If Mulroney dies, we may all be brought up on murder charges,” Vickie said. “I’m beginning to think we better take Mulroney back to the Medical Center before it’s too late. This whole thing is starting to make me ill.”

  “We better go back to the cave,” Dalk said. “It’s getting dark, and the rain is kicking up again.”

  “I’d forgotten how quickly it gets dark in these canyons,” Vickie said. “But let’s stay out here another minute or so--I want Toyama to get his full measure.”

  “If you’re serious about taking Mulroney out of here,” Dalk said, “I’m going to have to call somebody in to rescue us. Getting Mulroney down the hill was one thing, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry him back up--it’s too dark to see and this rain will make the trail way too slippery.”

  “I’ve ruined everybody’s life,” Vickie said. “You, Mary-Jo, Toyama, and even Kilkenney’s--and I was only trying to save my husband. I’m cursed, and everybody around me is cursed. I experienced a healing, and I thought if I could spare Mulroney the rigors of surgery, I could bring him back--now I’m feeling like a first class fool. I climbed high on the tears of the Virgin, and now I’m falling back to the bottom.”

  “We’re in a muddle, all right,” Dalk said. “But nobody’s to blame--especially not you--we were all in a hothouse of emotion over this thing. We acted rashly, foolishly. But our intentions were noble--sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe.”

  “We thought we were running towards the answer, but in reality, we were running away from the problem,” Vickie said. “Dalk--make the call--get us out of here. We’ll hide Toyama someplace before they get here.”

  They were interrupted by the grinding, whup-whup-whup-whup-whup of a helicopter’s rotor blades.

  “It’s too late,” Dalk said. “The police are here. Let’s go wait inside the cave. I want to have my back against something when they send down the dogs.”

  “Dalk,” Vickie said. “Wait.”

  “We can’t wait,” he said. “We’ve got to get some protection or we’re going to get bitten all to smithereens.”

  “Dalk,” Vickie said. “My cancer is back.”

  “What?” he said.

  “It’s back,” she whispered. “Help me Dalk--the pain is so great. Help me. I can’t feel my legs...”

  His quick movement saved her from tumbling, unconscious from the pain, into the stream. Somewhere above him, interspersed with the din of the Air Support unit, he could hear a dog barking. Scooping her up, he walked carefully back to the safety of
the cave. Although he felt the pressure of the police presence on the mountain, he didn’t run--the world at the bottom of the canyon had grown much too dark for that.

  Chapter 38

  “It’s the Spiral Nebulae,” the lady said.

  “I’ve never seen anything so glorious,” Vickie said.

  She was on the infinite grassy plain standing next to the lady beneath a vibrant night sky, the focused energy of the whole projecting, by degrees, an increasing awareness within her, an awareness which churned faster and faster until she thought she would explode upwardly into the Nebulae itself, her glorious absorption by it compellingly irresistible.

  “It’s a different time horizon,” the lady said. “It exists in the future to keep you from being overwhelmed by your present events. If you look closely, you can see your future self in it.”

  “I can see myself in the future,” Vickie said. “Not as I am now--but as I wish to be.” She turned to her benefactress. “My Lady,” she said, “you’re bleeding from your hands.”

  “The Stigmata of Saint Francis,” the Lady said. “My hands weep his blood for you--the blood which will draw you forward to the well of compassion.”

  “I was healed and now I’m not, and my husband is dying,” Vickie said. “Your tears didn’t work.”

  “His life will be spared by your prayers and your compassion,” the Lady answered. “Those are the true tears of the faithful.”