The birds carried me off toward a more residential part of town. Here were more ruined dwellings. On the sagging telephone lines were various dangling body parts: arms, legs, heads, torsos. Some of the crows flew to the dead human meat and began feasting. When I saw one of the crows pluck out an eyeball and gobble it like a stale marshmallow, I started to jerk, trying to get free.
My high-flying gyrations might not have been the most carefully thought out of ideas. After all, the crows had me way up in the air. Once they weren’t holding on to me, where was I going to go? I guess seeing that bird tear into the eyeball made me realize that maybe I was the next course. Certainly I was the freshest thing on the menu.
I came loose from their sharp beaks and claws.
No problemo . . . just a dream, just a falling dream . . .
I plummeted like Icarus after he’d flown too close to the sun, like a little boy falling off a Ferris wheel. Understandably, I was screaming, “Nonononononononononononono . . .”
Only I hit the hard floor in my living room. I had fallen off the sofa. The damned stereo had hit a scratch on one of Caitlin’s oldest Christmas records. “Let It Snow” was playing over and over.
Nonononononononononononononononono . . .
I got to my feet, walked over, and took off the record. I threw it as hard as I could against the wall.
Then I noticed there was confetti on me.
And a single black feather.
I looked up. Caitlin was standing in her bedroom doorway, arms folded, pissed-off look on her face. She marched across the room and got right in my face. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
I was dazed and frightened from the dream, freaked out by the physical manifestations left over from this most recent journey to the Land of the Dead. Sleep wasn’t going to return for the rest of the night. It didn’t matter whether my stepsister shrieked at me until dawn or not.
But she didn’t. All Cait did was bend down, crying, and begin picking up the pieces of the record.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CIRCUS OF THE DAMNED
Monster was acting up one night.
I was doing a quick run to the grocery store. The lights grew dim, then returned to normal, then dimmed again. Over and over. It almost seemed like Monster was trying to send me some sort of SOS with its headlights. It couldn’t have been Frank. His SOS would have stood for Suck on Shit.
I loved Monster, even though it housed my enemy—housed being the operative word. Monster was a haunted house, and Frank was the resident ghost. The house, I loved. The tenant, not exactly my old fraternity buddy.
I called Gramps the next day, but all I got was his answering machine. Then I remembered that he sometimes took his grandkids up to Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington this time of year.
Being all thumbs and not exactly mechanically inclined, I called Moose.
He answered the phone by saying, “Yo. Your dime.”
“It’s me. Jeremy.”
“Dude, what’s up?” he said over the blare of Saturday morning cartoons.
“My car is giving me trouble. Come over and take a look.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The headlights kept dimming when I was driving home last night.”
“Probably the alternator. But it could be the spark plugs. I’ll swing over in about a half hour.”
The half hour turned out to be more like three hours—typical Moose—but he did arrive. He was dressed in a greasy Cowboys jersey and tattered jeans and carried a red tool box.
We went out back and I popped the hood. “Wasn’t your uncle a mechanic or something?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Moose said. “Uncle Ben, he taught me everything I know about cars. He really loved cars.”
“I know what you mean.”
“No, I mean he really loved cars. Loved them to death—his own.”
“I don’t understand.”
Moose’s face became flushed. He cleared his throat and finally said, “It’s a weird story. Weird but true. Uncle Ben had this bizarre habit of kissing a part of a car before replacing it. He said he would kiss it for luck or some shit like that. Well, one day he must have been French-kissing a spark plug, because he swallowed it and choked to death.”
“Sorry to hear about that,” I said.
Moose happened to be working on the spark plugs at that point in the conversation. He pulled one out and said, “What the fuck?” He showed me the plug. It had flames and candy stripes painted on it in minute detail.
“I never saw a spark plug like that before,” I said. “What brand is it?”
“It says Cirque. Never heard of that brand before.” Moose fished around in his tool box. He took out a new spark plug, all white. “I’ll stick this one in. Maybe that weirdo plug is the problem.”
“Where’d it come from? Gramps wouldn’t have put it in.”
“Probably not. But then, who knows how long that plug’s been in there?”
“Maybe Frank took the car to a foreign mechanic.”
“Yeah. Could be. Looks like all the other spark plugs are normal.” He slammed the hood and said, “Start it up.”
I jumped in the car and turned the key. Monster revved to life instantly.
Moose waved his arms in the air. “It’s alive. Alive.”
Later that night, after I finally came home from work, I ate some leftovers from the fridge, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep.
I tossed and turned on the mattress, thinking about—of all things—that weird spark plug. Cirque. That was French, right? Why did my classic car have one French spark plug in it?
I felt like James Bond in a restaurant scene, realizing the waiter has a German accent and is therefore a neo-Nazi assassin. Not that I thought the French were out to kill me. But still, it seemed like an odd little clue.
When I finally fell asleep, I regretted it. Once again I was in the Land of the Dead, standing next to Monster in a cobweb-strewn garage. Auto parts, human parts, and even some animal parts, including a rotted kangaroo tail, hung from cables overhead and pegs on the wall.
A zombie mechanic with Ben stitched on his uniform walked up to me and said, “Hey there, sonnyboy.” Another fucking nickname. “Could you help me change the spark plugs up my ass?” I ignored him and he wandered off, giggling like an insane child.
I began to work on Monster. I looked under the hood and couldn’t believe it. Those flames and candy stripes Moose and I saw on that spark plug were everywhere now. Then calliope music tinkled from my car speakers, and confetti exploded from the breather.
It was like a carny virus had spread through the whole car, permeating it with riotous circus evil.
I stared into the engine’s workings and saw a clown’s severed lips, garish with waxy red gloss, lodged between the fan blades. I quickly pulled out the lips and tossed them into a nearby trash bin.
I decided to check the radiator. Instead of being filled with green cooling fluids, it was stocked with blood and was very low.
“What am I supposed to do, bleed for you?” I screamed at the car.
The car didn’t answer.
“What the fuck, I’m in the Land of the Dead, anyway,” I said. Biting into my wrist, I spat out a mouthful of flesh. I held my spurting wound over the radiator and bled into it.
The motor began to purr—a purr that grew and grew into a thundering roar of laughter.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE POSSESSION
I sat in Monster outside Mr. Pizza, slumped against the steering wheel, wishing the dry summer wind would blow me into a happy place, like Oz sans wicked witches and flying monkeys.
But like precious china smashed by a sledgehammer, the shattered pieces of my life were beyond repair. All that remained were shards and gritty dust.
I was hot and smelly from all that tomato sauce, cooking meat, and my own sweat—my secret stench ingredient. But the last thing I wanted to do was go home. Things were getting intense between me
and Cait.
I know it had to be tough for her, having a walking money pit for a little brother, but she loved me no matter how I cramped her lifestyle.
She was the one who taught me how to ride a bike and hit a home run. Our parents were too busy trying to keep the farm afloat. Whenever things were looking bad for me, she’d always come to my rescue. After the accident, it was Cait who suggested I move in with her so I could get back on my feet.
But now . . .
Things were getting claustrophobic.
We were like lab rats cramped into the same smelly wire cage. And that cage was getting crowded with Cait, myself, and Mad Dog knocking around in that dinky space.
At least the apartment’s heat problem was soon going to be a thing of the past. The air-conditioning was scheduled to be repaired in the morning. One would have thought that getting rid of those hell-on-earth temperatures would make life more bearable at the home front.
But the heat wasn’t really the problem.
I was.
It had been kind of Cait to let me move in with her, but it was dragging her down financially and emotionally.
It was getting late. I had to start heading home.
Wallowing in sorrow wasn’t really accomplishing anything. I still had to get up early and let in the repairman.
I started up Monster and hit the road. I needed some tunes. I turned on the radio, and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” had started, a heavy bass with helicopter sound effects followed by a pulsing guitar and finishing with a choir of British urchins singing, “We don’t need no ed-ju-kay-shun.”
That was followed by another Brit hit, Black Sabbath’s head-banging classic, “War Pigs.” Ozzy Osbourne’s demented signature vocals only made that wild song more disturbingly poignant. Hell, it just rocked.
By the time I parked Monster against the curb, yet another UK act was playing—Jethro Tull. It was the rocking, twisted tune “Aqualung.”
What is this, British Invasion night? I thought. I was humming the flute line as I walked into the apartment.
Cait was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a light blue terry-cloth robe, glaring at a calculator and papers with numbers scribbled on them. I knew exactly what was on her mind.
“Hey, Sis,” I said.
She gave me a hard look. The eyes said everything. Suddenly I felt like a mouse after the trap has snapped.
“I quit my job at Walmart,” she said.
My stomach tightened but I acted calm. I walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed a Coke. “Why?”
“They have random drug testing and said I had to do it. So I quit instead.”
Although Cait often dated dealers or ex-dealers, she was straight herself.
“But . . . you weren’t doing drugs, were you?” I really didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Yeah,” she said, lowering her eyes. “What with two jobs and all, I was doing some speed. Not much but probably enough to get fired for. And that’s the last thing I need right now, to get fired from a shitty job.”
“Oh.”
Cait doing drugs so she could hack working all those hours. Shame slithered around my guts like an enraged boa constrictor.
“Desperate times require desperate measures.” She picked up one of her papers. “First of all, we’re going to get rid of the cable TV and the long-distance calls, too. If we need to call outside the area, we’ll use prepaid phone cards—”
I interrupted her speech. “I have an idea.”
Cait put down the paper and stared at me.
“Have you ever thought of going out with Darrin?” I said.
“Out on a date with Darrin?” she said like it was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard. “This is like, totally out of the blue. Darrin? Why would I want to do that?”
This wasn’t looking promising.
“Because he’d pursue my case more. He’s basically put it on the back burner, but if you went out with him, he’d probably make it a top priority.”
“That pig. Expecting you to set him up on a date with me. Tell Mr. Law Boy to kindly go fuck himself; I have Mad Dog. Anyway, a law settlement would take too much time. Our problems are here and now.”
“Oh.”
A moment of awkward silence followed. Then I said, “Maybe I could pawn or sell my Fender. It’s still in great shape.”
“Not a bad idea, but that’s like putting a Band-Aid on a shotgun blast. A temporary solution to a much bigger problem.” She picked up another paper. “Here we go. One of your biggest assets right now is your car. It’s almost paid off. After you finish the payments, you could sell it for ten, twenty, or thirty times the amount you paid for it. That would help us get caught up on all the bills and other expenses around here. It would help you get back on your feet again.”
“My car?” I said. “Not my car . . .”
“With the extra money you could buy another car, or I could have Mad Dog drive me around on his bike and you could use my Volvo.”
I slapped Cait.
It happened so fast, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. And we’re not talking some little tap of a slap. I slapped her so hard she fell off the chair.
Tears were welling up in her eyes, but she didn’t cry.
“Jesus, Cait, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
I really didn’t. I’d never hit a woman before and would never have hit my stepsister in a million years. It felt like my hand had been a puppet limb, pulled by a string.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get the fuck out of my place right now.”
I didn’t stop to pack anything. I just grabbed my keys and left.
I knocked on Connie’s door. Her porch light had gone out, and she peered into the darkness.
“Frank, is that you?” she asked, confused.
Hearing Connie call me by her dead husband’s name made me want to run screaming into the darkness. But I didn’t move. I had nowhere else to go.
After she opened the door, I was going to give her a speech on how I needed to stay at her place for a few days until my stepsister cooled off.
But instead, I just cried. When Connie wrapped her arms around me, I only cried harder.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BAT’S ENTERTAINMENT
I was twenty-one the third time I dreamed about River’s Edge.
I’d had a pretty freaky experience earlier that particular day. I was using the men’s room in a gas station. Then somebody came into the bathroom—heavy footsteps—and walked up to my stall and tapped on the door.
“Ocupado,” I said in a Spanish accent—trying to be funny, I guess.
But the person on the other side continued to tap. In fact, it was clear he was tapping out some little rhythm. Three taps and then four. Three, then four.
“Hey, don’t rush me,” I said.
Three taps. Four taps. Three taps. Four taps.
Eventually the heavy footsteps moved away, leaving me to wonder what the hell had just happened.
Was it a secret code for folks looking for sex in public bathrooms?
Was it a weirdo who enjoyed freaking people out when they were at their most vulnerable (and I was indeed very vulnerable, pants around my ankles in a tiny little room)?
I never did find out.
The fact that it had happened in a bathroom reminded me of the Mr. Brown nightmare, so maybe that’s why I visited River’s Edge in my dreams.
Once again I was walking on the rocky plain. Once again I approached the canyon and looked down into the waters of that bizarre diamond river. Once again an odd dead person talked to me.
This one was sitting on the edge of the canyon. It was a woman with a huge mane of gray, grizzled hair, like an old lioness. She didn’t really look too dead. Oh, sure, she was a little green here and there, but all in all, she had a sort of classy, old-lady elegance to her. She was wearing a simple white shroud with only a f
ew little bloodstains on it.
“Come here often?” I said in a mock sexy pickup-line voice.
She looked at me curiously. “The fact that you, a living person, are so nonchalant about this place makes me wonder if you come here often. Do you?”
“This is my third visit,” I said.
The old woman smiled. “Third? You must be quite special to be able to come and go like that. You must be touched by”—she pointed a dainty finger at the river—“that. By time.”
“Oh?” I stared into the faceted liquid. Images of clocks—old and new, wooden and metal and plastic—suddenly appeared. Probably because I was thinking of time. I even saw a brief image of Big Ben. “So that’s time?”
“Yes, the River of Time. Or rather, one of the river’s countless tributaries.” The old woman cocked her head. “Lovely, isn’t it? A serene, majestic force, flowing through the universe.” She motioned to a bat creature perched on a canyon wall. “What a shame those things won’t let us enter the river. But maybe it wouldn’t be good for a dead person to go splashing around in time.” She rose and stood by me. She was actually about an inch taller than me. “Let’s get you away from here. The Guardians are tricky customers. Finicky. One of them might decide you shouldn’t be here.”
“But you said I was touched by time,” I said as we walked away. “Maybe that would mean the Guardians would leave me alone.”
“Or it might mean they’d be jealous of you and decide to torture you. Use you as a toy. They can be quite imaginative.” She gave me a stern look. “They would be jealous. They’re pretty much just cheap help—budget security guards—and they know it.”
“I’ve heard what they can do.” I related the story of Mr. Brown to her. Then I had a thought. “Hey, you called them security guards. I know you were just making a metaphor—or a simile, whatever—but still. If they’re guards, who hired them?”
The old woman smiled. “Good question. Wish I knew. My best guess would be that the river simply brought them into being. They look a little like those that dwell in the river.”
“Dwell in the river? What’s that? Time fish?”
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