It was stupid feeling this way, he thought, worried about the next moment and that gun now resting on the bed table, and wanting that next moment to come because he would spend it with her. Might spend it with her, he corrected himself. It wasn’t good to get ahead of matters. Not good at all.
But that didn’t stop him wanting that next moment, and it did not stop him wanting the woman singing Sonny and Cher tunes now beyond his bathroom door.
So what could he do? He could clean up, that’s what he could do, he decided, taking in the mess that had moved from the car to his room. Clothes to be put away, or at least piled so that they could be taken down to the Super Suds come morning. Blankets to be folded. Jackets to be hung. It was plenty to do while Mari bathed, and it would keep his mind off his leg, so he got down to it and started with the clothes.
He squatted mostly on one leg, his cast jutting out and forward so he looked like a Russian dancer frozen in mid step, and took a pile of their clothing and lifted it to the bed, planning to sort it there. Buried within it, though, was the fanny pack, and washing that would be a waste, not to mention detrimental to the very few dollars they had left, and so he took it in hand and slung it across to the chair where it landed quite safely in the sag of the cushion. Then he turned back to the clothes, getting his jeans and hers pulled from the mound before something caught his attention. A sound. A sound he knew.
He turned slowly toward the chair, his skin tightening all over, and saw what the sound was. A coin was on the floor, had fallen to the floor, and was rolling his way. A penny it was, and as it neared his feet it leaned to one side and began circling before him, as if in a holding pattern Waiting.
For what, he learned next.
From the worn depression in the chair’s cushion, another coin came, rolling slowly up from the pit and then over the top to drop to the floor, where it rolled toward Jay. And then another followed suit, and another still, and finally one more, until there were four coins, all pennies, wheeling toward the one already at his feet, and when they arrived they fell into line and circled with the first of their number, tracking round, and round, and round once more until all at the very same instant tipped to the side and showed...
...and showed tails up at Jay.
His mouth went dry at the sight. Dead dry.
Oh God, no. Please no.
The fear leapt from a place he thought dead. Dead a week now. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t. The tails were back. Back!
But...but where was that knowing? That knowing that death would come? As he looked to the coins he could not see death, all he could see was...was...
...a number.
5
Just a number. Another ordinary number. Just...
5
Just that. And what did it mean?
It means what it means...
That recollection chilled Jay, but that was all it was—memory. What he had to focus on now was this number.
5
And what did it mean to him? To them? He glanced at the gun on the bed table and wondered, too, what it meant for that?
Tails, he thought. Tails. Before they had signaled death. Might they again? Once more his gaze was drawn to the gun, then back to the coins which he knelt to pick up, grimacing. He held them in his fist, and noticed how the bed table lamp shone light that gleamed off of the gun.
In his fist he felt the five pennies tremor.
His breath rushed in, then out, and he squeezed the coins tight. Tight so they could not move, but they did, and finally he dropped them into his empty shirt pocket and sat down on the bed.
Death? Death? Death? That word rang over and over again in his head. Did the tails still mean death?
The coins shook against his chest and he slapped his hand hard over them.
Death? But what death? There was no vision of it rushing at him. No sense of impending doom. No body counts, no flames, no falling. No nothing. Just the number...
5
...bigger for some reason in his knowing of it. Just that big number, and the gleaming steel revolver on his bed table.
Had death come back, but to be dispensed?
The five pennies shuddered, and he held them down fast.
Not seen, but dispensed? By him? With that gun?
And they writhed in the confines of the pocket as Jay held them over his thudding heart.
Dispensed to something somehow related to the number...
5
...?
The coins wriggled and shook and he finally squeezed his hand around them, bunching the material of the pocket in his fist. And that was when Mari came out of the bathroom.
He swore his heart stopped when he saw her.
She had finished her bath, the water now gasping away down the drain beyond, and she stood before him toweling her hair, a long sleeved orange jersey all she had on. It hung down to her knees like a nightshirt, clinging to the parts of her form that were still damp, but these Jay did not notice. No. It was all he could do to see anything but the huge white 5 emblazoned on the jersey’s front.
“You gonna wash u—. Jay?”
He gaped at her wildly, not believing what this was. Not believing that this was what it had all been about. It couldn’t. It couldn’t!
But coins vibrating in the depths of his fist disagreed. Oh yes, they disagreed.
“What’s wrong, Jay? What are you holding against your chest? What’s in your hand?”
He shook his head. No, no, no. He couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t do this. There was no reason!
For everything there is a reason...
Not for this! his mind screamed out. Not this! Not her!
She stepped toward him, but he backed away, into the bed table, one hand going back to the gun, as if guided there. As if it was supposed to wrap around the grip, and feel the steel, and curl a finger over the trigger...
5
NO!
He fought it, but took the gun in hand. Took it and lifted it behind his back and secreted it down his waistband and under his shirt.
“Jay, for God’s sake, tell me what is wrong!”
She came closer, and he backed more away, not wanting to be near her now. Not wanting to be anywhere near her now. He grabbed his crutches and hobbled to the door, the pain in his leg not even an afterthought.
“Jay!”
“Stay here,” he told her. “You hear me? Stay here! Don’t come near me! Whatever you do, stay away from me!”
“Jay, what—”
But he was out the door, and hopping madly down the staircase. She ran to the window and watched him crutch quickly up toward Wells Road.
Forty Seven
Ask Max
Jay was halfway to Wells Road when he stopped and took the coins from his shirt pocket and flung them across the street. They skidded over the asphalt and slid into the gutter against the far curb like a mass toss in a penny pitch. He stood, his back leaning against the front wall of the long-closed dress shop, just between the two big windows where showy frocks had hung in better times, and he watched where the pennies had come to rest. And rest they did, not moving at all anymore. Cast among the dust they now were, to be found or swept away, and neither mattered to him. Or to the coins, he suspected, because they had done what was required of them. They had marked him a target.
He shook his head hard again, shutting his eyes tight and trying to squeeze the thought from his mind, because it could not be. NO!
Off the wall he pushed, and started moving on the crutches again, the hard and deadly thing pressing at the small of his back. The thing that Julio had given over, though who Julio was, and for whom the weapon had been intended, he did not know, or care. It was with him now, in his waistband right now, well within reach at a split second’s notice now, and he had to be away from Mari, who had made him promise never to doubt the coins again. Ever.
And he had promised.
So now he could not doubt. He could only defy. And so he ran, or moved as fast as a half l
ame man could toward Wells Road. And once there? He had no idea. Farther, he thought. He would just keep going until what was fated did not have to be, because he could not kill Mari.
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
“NO!” he screamed aloud as the cacophony of numbers, of that number, batted about his consciousness, rushing at him like death had from the tails prior incarnation. Wordlessly they were taunting, chanting kill her, kill her, kill her, kill her, kill her.....
And from them he ran on, good leg and bad leg and two wooden poles carrying him down Todd to Wells Road, away from the instruction, the order, the fate. Away, and once to Todd and Wells he moved on, crossing the intersection at a diagonal, not even looking, wishing once again that some errant driver might just mow him down like Mari should have to save her own skin. But nothing came, nothing stopped him, and he made it to the far side of the intersection and stopped, out of breath, crashing shoulder first into the light pole right there. A few feet away the barber pole outside Max’s Clip Joint corkscrewed blue and red stripes up and away, the motion a dizzying show that he could not look at any more, and so he hung his head and sucked air as fast as he could. Hung his head as sweat dripped from the point of his nose to the pale sidewalk below, splattering dark rounds of moisture on the pavement right next to—
He jumped back from what was resting at his feet, landing against the bubble-like fender of an old Ford pickup parked at the curb.
No. A new ‘no’ now, one more urgent, yet more reserved. One borne of knowing, and fear. One that with all of his soul Jay wished he could make true. A ‘no’ that explained so many things right then. A ‘no’ that posed new questions, too. No.
But it was what he saw, and no number of denials could change that. It was right there, hard and real, an upturned and empty five gallon bucket with the Ganello pitted black olives label upside down on its side. It cast a shadow from the waning sun, and so it was real, not just an illusion. This was not Broadway and Wall, but it could have been. It was not the summer of 1989, but what was time, anyway, but the distance between things that were bound to happen?
It was here. He was here.
But where?
“Hey, buddy, would you mind gettin’ off my truck?”
Jay looked to the voice, the old voice of Max the barber who had never cut his hair and called everyone who passed by his shop buddy. He steadied himself on his crutches and came away from the truck.
“Thank you,” Max said, though how much real ‘thanks’ was in there was debatable. He turned to go back in his shop, but Jay stopped him with a question.
“Do...do you know who this...this bucket belongs to?”
Max looked back, at the bucket, and then to Jay. “Nice fella.” The old thin man with big glasses and a small head surveyed the block up and down. “Don’t know where he is. Been out here usually ‘till about eight or so.”
“Doing what?”
“Playin’ his harmonica for change. You know the routine.”
He certainly did. A slightly different routine, maybe, but the particulars likely hadn’t changed that much.
“How long’s he been here?” Jay asked.
“Oh,” Max said, thinking and rubbing his chin. “A few days now, I think. Showed up about Monday, I think.”
“He’s been in town since Monday?”
“Think so. Why, you know him?”
Jay gave a shallow nod. “I think I might.”
“Gave him a clip on Tuesday, I think,” Max said. “Called me Max like he knew me, or somethin’. Told me he was squatting out by the old tire plant. Hard times, you know.”
“Yeah,” Jay said. “The tire plant. Up on Traction?”
“Way up there, you know. The one that closed, you know.”
“Right,” Jay said. “Thanks.”
“If you see him, say Max’ll watch his stool here.” And Max let loose a dry laugh at what he said, some humor in it to him and him alone, and then he went back inside. And Jay?
Jay was moving for all he was worth up Wells Road toward Traction.
Forty Eight
Peace, Nothing
It was almost nine when Jay reached the road to the once proud Jefferson Tire & Rubber Plant, an industrial machine that had employed six hundred people making the small rubber rounds on which airplanes took off and landed, and nothing else. Now, though, there was little left, the mighty presses and ovens and cutting machines that hummed and fired and made the place alive having been sold and shipped off en masse to a place in Venezuela where six hundred others were making the presses and ovens and cutting machines work. Just a shell was left, a big rusting steel shell, with holes cut away to the sky, the pieces scavenged by locals and likely sold for scrap, as had been large sections of the chain link fence that once surrounded the forty acre site. Now it was open, open to the world.
But only two inhabitants of that planet need be here this night, Jay thought, and felt for the gun at the back of his pants. There. Ready. All that was needed was a willing finger to pull the trigger.
And Jay knew where that could be had. No farther than the end of his arm.
He came up the road and over the rise that hid most of the plant from Traction, a thick cake of dust covering the path where workers had come and gone in American cars, but where now there was but a single set of shoe prints, heading in and out several times. Back and forth, to town and back. Well, come back again, Jay thought, and flexed his index finger around the crutch’s grab handle. Getting ready.
It had been him, the bum, the crazy fucking bum all along. How? Why? Fuck those two questions, Jay told himself. Fuck any questions and any answers, and fuck anything else but that bum in his sights, because oh, yes, someone was going to die tonight. Tonight, tonight, tonight. Blast that crazy fucking smile off his face, all right. Tear him a new nose, inside out. Fuck him. FUCK HIM!
Just outside the rusting red skeleton of the dead plant’s main building, Jay stopped, standing on a skim of dirt that covered a parking lot where hellos were once said and goodbyes were once said, and, oh, look, there were footprints tracking across the filth on the lot, and so another goodbye would be said right here this night. Goodbye, Sign Guy, bum, you crazy grinning fuck, or whatever you are. Adios! Bye bye!
That’s what it would be, and Jay was going to be ready, and so he reached to the back of his pants for the gun that would never kill Mari, that would instead kill the thing that had done this, done this, somehow done this, and he was about to pull it and have it at the ready when a light glowed on the rise between Traction and the plant. A light coming up the road. The light of a car coming up the road. A car that crested the rise and was coming at Jay with just one headlight shining.
“Dammit, Mari! No!” He left the gun in his waistband and tossed the crutches aside, and hopped and hobbled toward where the road met the lot, waving his arms at that one white radiant eye, but the car reached there first and stopped in a skid that sent a cloud of dust rolling toward Jay. A brown and gray cloud of dirt and rust that came at him, and surrounded him, and washed past him so that once again he could see the—
“Couldn’t let me have my fun, could you,” the bum said as he came out of the car’s driver’s side, the hat-topped silhouette he cut unmistakable as he passed before the lone headlight and went to the passenger door. There he stopped after opening it and looked to Jay, his form just a blot on the night, the hat atop his head straight and that smile beaming, Though Jay could not see it he knew it was beaming, oh yes. His hand went back and curled round the gun’s grip. But why did he have Mari’s car—
Because he had Mari, Jay realized when the bum dragged a form from the passenger side and walked into the brightness the lone headlight was casting.
“Had to screw with my fun, didn’t you?” the bum said, and flung Mari to the dirty ground at his side. She was bound, hands behind her and legs at the ankles, and something had been tied around her mouth as a gag. Her eyes were open and wild with fear, and it was then that Jay drew the gun
and pointed it at the bum.
5
Jay winced at the force of the number as it hit him, what it was and what it meant exploding in his head like a small atom bomb. The gun dangled for a moment in his grip, jittering uselessly at the ground.
“Got that loud and clear, did you? Good!” And then the bum took Mari by the hair and brought her to her knees, exposing the white number blazing on her jersey. “There’s your target, young fella. Right there. So take care of it.”
“NO!” Jay screamed at him, and brought the gun up, keeping one hand over his ears in a useless attempt to keep the numbers out. To keep the bum out. But that would not do it, because there was no hole that led to one’s mind. Just paths through the ether that were marked on no anatomy map. If he wanted in, he could be in. And, well, he was way, way in, Jay now knew, and had been for sometime. “I won’t!”
“Won’t?” the bum repeated incredulously, shaking Mari by the hair. “Won’t? Have we forgotten what happens when we don’t listen to the coins?”
And from Jay’s right side there rose a roar, and a gush, and fine pieces of sand washed over him, and when he turned his head that way the train was right there, on top of him!
Only it was not. It could not be. It was only in his head, courtesy of the bum. It had been real once, but was now only a memory, and memory could not hurt you—it could only drive you mad.
“I won’t!” Jay screamed again, and the bum knelt next to Mari.
“He refuses,” he said toward her face. “He thinks some train is going to come again and that he’ll be able to get out of the way, but that’s not going to happen, is it?” And he twisted her hair so her head shook from side to side, her terrified eyes wide at him. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?” Up and down, now, he forced her head, making her nod. “And should we tell him?” A nod again at his hand, and the bum looked back to Jay and pointed to the north with his free hand. “Interstate Seventy, young fella—know it?”
Jay sidestepped unsteadily right, putting the hand that had covered his ear in front of his eyes now, trying to shield the car’s light. His other hand held the gun out straight once again, pointing it at the bum. The bum so close to Mari. The bum who was quoting the rules of the coins, and was moving into the section on consequences for non-adherence.
The Donzerly Light Page 34
