The Donzerly Light

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  “Jay!” Christine yelled, his arm yanking away from her.

  “Buddy?” Jude reached out to him, but Jay rolled away, down the bar, spinning round and round on his feet, wheeling away from them.

  COLD......COLD......WATER!

  Oh, God! He could feel it! The cold water! All around him! Rushing at him!

  “Jay!” Jude shouted at him, looking around as all eyes were now on the Golden Boy, the Maker of Green, the King of the Street. Gawking at the raucous sight of the young man seemingly come apart. “Jay, what the hell is wrong?!”

  At the end of the bar he stumbled to the wall, one hand still fisted around the coins, the tails, that had shown in his hand just as he was racked by this pain, this terror, this...

  ...this vision of death.

  “Oh, God,” he gasped, seeing it swarm at him. The water, the cold, cold water, and—

  THE BRIDGE......

  “NO!” he shrieked, so loud, so piercing, that it drew cries from some women in the room. He groped along the living room wall, people spilling away from this lad suddenly gone mad, his friends coming after him, pulling at his clothes, his arms as he knocked vases and lamps and chairs to the floor. Kept moving, kept feeling for the way out. Out of here. Because he had to—

  THE BRIDGE......A BUS......A VAN......COLD WATER

  DEATH! DEATH! COMING!! TO THE PEOPLE!!! TO FORTY ONE PEOPLE!!!

  HE HAD TO GET TO THEM!!!!

  “NO!” he screamed again, his tuxedo jacket coming off in his friends’ hands as he pulled away from them and bolted through clots of terrified guests for the front door. “NOOOOOO!!!”

  Jude stood back for a moment with Jay’s black jacket dangling in his grip, Bunker and Steve and Christine at his side.

  “Jude, what the hell’s going on?” Bunker asked.

  Jude turned to Christine and asked harshly, “Has he been taking any of your shit? Any pills, or anything else ?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No. I didn’t see him take... No, he couldn’t have.”

  “Are you sure, God dammit?!”

  “Yes, yes. Almost positive.”

  Jude gave a quick look to the faces staring their way now. Faces of the people who might have brought them their money. Might have, until now.

  “Dammit,” he swore, and ran for the door, Steve and Bunker and Christine on his heels.

  Twenty Five

  Tale Of The Tails

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

  He was outside now, on the sidewalk, across from Central Park, but it was nowhere near where he needed to be. Where he had to get. To stop it. To save them from—

  COLDCOLDCOLDWATERRRRRRRRRR......

  Jay felt something twist in his gut, a fiery jet in the cold grip within, the hot pain bursting like a rocket high into his chest, setting his lungs and his throat afire. He gasped for air, hand to his throat, and darted out into the thick traffic on Central Park West. Cars braked, and skidded, and honked, and swerved, and for sure right then there was no magical bum, no different angel to make it all safe. Screams rose as he stumbled across all lanes, the fisted hand of coins stabbed out in front like a blocker’s ready shield. Curses flew at him, at his stupidity. And none of it he heard, only the thundering surety in his head that there was a van, and a bus, and cold, cold water, and a bridge, and that he had to get there NOW!

  “You’re gonna fucking DIE, fella!” was the last cry that rose, from a cabbie who’d rolled his window down to loose the prophecy, one which chased Jay as he ran jerkily into the dark heart of Central Park.

  * * *

  Miles away, miles and miles away, cold water flowed beneath a bridge on the river as a van and a bus crossed into the city.

  Halfway across the bus jerked right, something very, very wrong, something so very wrong, and slammed into the van that was cruising alongside. The van’s black windows shattered as it bounced off of the bus and smashed into the steel rails that skirted the roadway, caroming off as sparks fanned behind it. The bus hit it again on the rebound, and followed it right this time, grinding the smaller vehicle horribly into the metalwork once more, testing the old steel, and breaking it finally.

  Someone inside screamed. Then someone else. And more people still as the van and the bus vaulted the breached rails and leapt out from the Brooklyn Bridge and spun end over end into the East River’s cold, cold flow.

  * * *

  “Where is he?” Steve begged the dark and empty park, into which they had run at the direction of one very pissed off cabbie.

  “Do you see him?” Jude asked, jogging forward of the rest, Christine the farthest behind, having worn the three inch heels.

  “I don’t,” Bunker said, but quickly changed his reply at the sight of a form on the ground not far ahead, the stark white of the tuxedo shirt blazing against the near black of the night. “THERE!”

  Bunker pointed and began to run, and the others followed, racing to their friend to see if he was all right. Wanting to get to him. To get to him fast.

  But when they got close to him they hesitated, and did not draw any nearer.

  Jay lay on the ground on his stomach, his arm stretched forward, hand and fist pulling at the damp earth, moving his writhing body inch by inch toward something. Something none of them could understand. His legs dragged limp behind him, useless, long sacks of flesh and bone that were dead weight and no more. His mouth opened and closed, like a landed fish searching for the thing it needed to live, and his eyes were bugged rounds of white and green stricken with soundless agony. He looked as though he were dying.

  “My God, Jude, what’s happening to him?” Bunker asked, pleaded, as Christine caught up. She moved past them at first, but recoiled very quickly.

  “I don’t know,” Jude answered.

  “Is he sick?” Christine asked tearily, retreating against Steve, who put an arm around her.

  “He freaked out,” Jude said, and Jay rolled over right then onto his back, his eyes that looked almost dead staring at the stars through the canopy of trees.

  A hiss of air wheezed out of him, out of his gaping mouth, locked open now, pain and terror etched upon the face around it. His chest heaved once, then twice, then settled flat. His fist opened and the coins dripped from his grasp.

  He was still.

  “Is he...” Christine began to ask. Her question was answered wordlessly a few seconds later as Jay’s body spasmed suddenly, violently.

  “He’s alive,” Steve said, some thin kind of smile making it onto his face. But not to Jude’s, who stared down at his...friend as though he were a loathsome vermin of some kind.

  Jay rolled to his side, his legs drawing up to his chest as waves of coughs roared up from within, some forcing vomit up with blasts of cold, stale air. Dead air. His eyes were clamped tight now, eyes that had gazed at the heavens just a moment before and watched the heavens go black. Blacker than black, really. Go gone. He curled into a ball, a hacking shivering ball, trembling against the great mass of the earth. Trembling and clutching himself and crying and knowing so very, very clearly that the cold water had swallowed them. Swallowed them all.

  Oh my God, he thought, dread zinging about his thoughts like wild lightning, the certainty of death, of knowing death, beating on him now like a pendulum whose relentless rhythm was surely driving him mad.

  Or had already.

  “What the fuck have you done, farmboy?” Jude asked him from the distance between them that would not diminish. Ever. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done with this little show?”

  Bunker looked to Jude. “Carrillo’s never going to give us his money now.”

  Jude chuckled dryly, humorlessly. “To hell with Carrillo. Wait ‘til the people who saw farmboy’s performance tonight start talking.”

  “It’ll be a stampede,” Steve said, quite correctly.

  Jude turned his back on Jay for a moment, the spun angrily back his way and kicked dirt at him. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU FUCKING DID, YOU FUCKING HICK?! YOU FUCKING
RUINED US!”

  Into a tighter ball Jay curled, hands over his ears now, not wanting to hear Jude’s scream. Not wanting to hear any screams. All those screams, Screams that were now silent because...

  ...because the reaper had come.

  “You mean, the business?” Christine asked, eyes puddled, her makeup streaked.

  Jude looked at her severely. “Yeah, tits, the business. Your fucking boyfriend...” And another kick of dirt sputtered over Jay. “...just screwed us into the fucking ground!”

  She sniffled and looked to Jay, to the mess of a man cowering on the ground, whimpering like a beaten dog.

  Jude stepped close to her, his eyes enraged as he flicked the diamonds dangling from her ears. “Go ask him to buy you some more of these, tits, and see what you get.”

  “Jude,” Steve protested. “Come on.”

  “Fuck you, Lederer,” Jude said, and kicked another load at his very former friend, then turned his back on them all and stalked off toward the street, his head shaking with disgust and fists pounding each leg.

  Christine looked to Jay once more, one hand reaching up to touch the earrings he had given her. Three grand they had cost. She caressed one of the diamonds between her thumb and forefinger and eased away from Steve’s comforting arm, and backed away further from the man who had given her some very nice things, but might not be able to anymore. Backed away, slowly, her heels pecking into the cooling earth, and finally turned from the scene and walked slowly from the park.

  Bunker looked to Steve, and Steve to him, and they both looked to Jay for a silent moment, wondering why he wasn’t talking. Why he wasn’t saying anything, defending himself, explaining. All he did was lay there, in the filth, hugging himself and weeping softly. Alone. He had shut them out, and shut them down.

  “Bunk,” Steve said, and his friend looked to him with perplexed eyes. “Let’s get out of here. It’s over.”

  It took a minute to sink in, then Bunker nodded. It really was over. Everything.

  The two of them left together, looking back once, twice, then no more, their friend a friend no more. He was nothing now. Just a bum.

  Twenty Six

  Gone And Come Again

  Some hours later Jay rose from the ground in Central Park and began to walk.

  His once white shirt was soiled. One leg of his pants was torn at the knee. His face and hair were matted with dirt. His pockets were empty, his wallet and keys taken while he lay in the park. He had put up no fight. There was no point.

  All that remained was one thing. One thing. A thing that he must do. A simple thing that would have been hard that morning, but now was not. Not now that he’d known the terror of cold water rolling over him, holding him, squeezing him in an icy embrace that scorched every inch of his body with the worst kind of agony. Cold water that gushed into his mouth and poured down his throat, choking him as life bubbled away, forced from his lungs, his legs going numb, his arms flailing and fighting for a way out of the water. A way that was not there. That had not been there for all those people.

  And that was the one thing he must do. He must know why. Had Sign Guy done this to him, or had his gift soured? Had he changed it himself? Had he needed it too much? Wanted it too much? Quested for green so blindly that the trick of his gift had turned wicked? Or had the bum tweaked his so-called donzerly light, focusing it elsewhere? On other things. On a spot of the river far from where he had been, but not so removed from the strange universe the bum had cajoled that Jay could not see the death, and hear it, and smell it, and feel it, and know it. And live it, and then live again, to remember it. To remember it all. To suffer it as long as he had memory. Had the bum done that to him?

  Or (God, no, please no) had he done it to himself?

  And, more frightful yet, like the heads had come back again and again, would the tails? And the death that this night they foretold?

  No, no, God, please no, Jay prayed. Openly prayed as he walked out of the park and through the city. Through the neon night of Times Square, and on beyond that. South down Broadway for hour upon hour, puzzled gazes washing over him as strangers wondered just what the hell had happened to the filthy young man. A filthy young man who did pause once at a store window where a television played behind glass. A television showing scenes of death on the river. Boats and divers and helicopters, all efforts at rescue that would be futile, because what was there to rescue?

  And on he pressed, knowing what he would do now when he found Sign Guy. Not confront him, nor accuse him. No. He would fall to his knees and beg him. Put his hands together and pray the bum to make it better. To fix his gift. To take it away or charge it anew, just make it not what it had become. Make it so no more death would come to him. Never. Ever. Please.

  Yes, he would beg. Would kiss the ground the bum walked on. Because he could not take this. Could not. Not death again. And again. And again.

  He reached Trinity Church just as the new day was a blue-orange glow in the east.

  The bum was not there.

  And his sign was not there.

  And his can was not there, and his bucket was not there.

  All there was was the breeze whistling up Wall Street, and the faint pulse of the world spinning on. And no one to beg. No one to beg that death should come to him no more.

  Jay fell to his knees where Sign Guy had sat, where it all had begun, where the gift had been given, and he looked to the sky and wept at the spire, its usual beauty right then a slender black gash upon the rising dawn.

  Seventh Interrogation

  August 15...2:51 a.m..

  Mr. Wright sat silent, thoughtful, his gaze set upon Jay, one solid finger tapping on the file until the percussive display ceased abruptly, the drumming digit stopping on the upstroke and straightening so it pointed at his prisoner. “What happened to you in that park?”

  “I died. And then I lived again. So I could die once more.”

  The finger folded slowly down. “You’re saying it kept happening, just like with the heads and the stocks. Only now it was tails and...what? Death?”

  “That’s right,” Jay confirmed, his voice quiet, the long hours, the long days of the past three weeks, maybe the whole eight years before this, working on him. Possibly the hours ahead, as well. “I’d see death not long before it happened. The death of many. And I’d suffer that death with them.”

  Mr. Wright slowly nodded. “And you believe that? That you died? Actually died?”

  “Mister, I drown when that van and that bus went into the East River. I was crushed when a crane toppled onto a pre-school in Minnesota. I suffocated in a West Virginia mine collapse. I died in flames many times—in plane crashes, house fires, an oil rig explosion. I could feel my skin scorch and peel away from the flesh underneath as it cooked. I learned about death from the inside, and there’s no way I can prove that to you, so unless you have an EKG strip in there showing me flatlined, you’re just going to have to take my story as it comes. And then decide whether to believe me or kill me. It’s your call.”

  The display of spirit seemed not to trouble his captor now, Jay thought. He seemed simply to consider it silently as any man might a reasonable explanation—even though this was beyond a line of reason that the man had been reluctant, even unwilling, to venture across as yet. It was odd. Maybe it was the length they’d come already, this far into the tale. Halfway, nearly. But to a defining point, for certain. Maybe this man felt part of the journey now. Connected to it. It seemed possible to Jay, in any case, because there was a subtle change in the man’s demeanor. In his look, a certain...relaxation to it now. As if some threshold had been crossed and some test passed.

  But not a test telling enough that the cuffs were off his hands as yet.

  “So you saw this thing happening on the bridge, this...accident, and you felt what those people’s death was going to be?”

  Jay nodded. “Something like that. I think I felt their death coming. I felt the water surrounding me, and going into m
y mouth, and it was so cold, and numbing, and—“ Jay stopped, noticing that his captor’s gaze had ticked off of him, just a bit, but enough so that he seemed disconnected. “What?”

  Mr. Wright looked back, came back to the moment quickly. His hands folded atop the file, fingers laced but thumbs twiddling. Was something bothering him? “Nothing. Go on.”

  It took a second for the odd interruption to fade before Jay could pick up once again. “And I knew that it was coming. That death was coming. For all those people.”

  “So you tried to go there?”

  “I was compelled to go there,” Jay clarified. “To stop it. I could see it coming, this mass death, and I was sucked toward it. That’s how it felt, like I was being pulled to it. I don’t know, maybe it was just death coming at me, but I had to get there. I had to.”

  “But you didn’t make it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You...died.”

  Jay nodded. “Yes. I choked on water that wasn’t there. My legs wouldn’t work, but they were fine. I was clawing for the dim surface of a river that was miles away. The lights went out, and everything was black, and...”

  “What? ‘And’ what?”

  A knot rose in Jay’s throat, receding only when he swallowed it down. Put it away. Because it was over, right? It was never going to happen again, right? “And it had me.”

  “Death?”

  He nodded. “And don’t believe the brochures the gurus try to sell. There’s no light, no warmth, no sense of freedom and safety. There’s none of that.”

  Now Mr. Wright swallowed. “What is there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Can you imagine nothing, Mr. Wright? Can you?”

  Again the man swallowed, the table momentarily turned. “No.”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” Jay told him. “It’s a million times harder to be there than to imagine it. It’s like...infinity emptied out.”

  Mr. Wright looked purposely away and scribbled something in his notebook. It was a long moment before his eyes rose to Jay again.