by Glover, Dan
"While I was growing up my parents were always gone on business. I guess they thought money was more important than being around us kids. Did you have a good relationship with your folks, Kirk?"
"I don't recall my childhood. Sometimes I think I sprang into this world fully grown."
"Where are you from?"
"Oh, all over; I've walked on every continent and lived in countries no longer in existence. I've been traveling my whole life, it seems."
"Is that why you travel with the carnival?"
"Let's say it affords a certain amount of anonymity. The people here don’t ask questions and we're never in one place for any length of time."
"Can I ask you something, Kirk?"
"Anything, my boy, ask me anything. Whether or not I'll answer is another thing altogether, though."
"Are you sick?"
"How do you mean?"
"You look older than when you first found me. You look a lot older. If you don’t want to answer, I'll understand. If I can help, let me know."
"I'm quite a bit older than I let on."
"I'm not sure I understand. How old are you?"
"Remember the story of my Chinese lady? The one who offered those delectable concoctions made from the scraps of my work? She told me a tale of certain Chinese monks who lived for over three hundred years. I told her the same thing: impossible. So she proved it to me. She warned me this would happen once I stopped."
"Stopped what?"
"Partaking of the delights she offered. I'm dying, Oscuro, and quickly. I'm well over one hundred and fifty years old. Soon, I'll look every bit of it and more. Unless... ah, what's the use."
"Come on, Kirk. You don't expect me to believe that."
"No, of course I don't. I'm just a silly old man, probably senile."
"You're not that old, Kirk. You're pulling my leg."
"I suppose I could prove it to you, boy. Let's say I told you I knew of a way to help with that problem of yours as well as aiding me to regenerate too."
"What problem do I have?"
"Don't be stupid, son. It doesn't become you."
Oscuro drained his glass, got up, and left. Though a bit tipsy from the good cognac he knew he still possessed the skills to do what needed doing. He'd show the old man who was stupid.
The carnival had pitched their tents outside the small city of Paradise, a perfect name for the hell he had in mind. A particularly beautiful and vivaciously young pregnant lady had attracted his attention when she and her man friend entered Oscuro's magic tent on the first night of the carnival. He didn’t concern himself with the formality of marriage though he did notice they both wore wedding bands on their ring fingers.
He had successfully distracted the couple with a silly game card game they took for real magic and they clapped their hands and hugged and kissed one another while Oscuro deftly pick-pocketed the pretty young thing's pocketbook lifting the only article he needed: her driver's license.
Though he had his own motives in mind for the gorgeous blonde thing with small breasts and a growing belly, now he saw a way to repay Kirk for his kindness, for saving his life. The next night Oscuro dressed all in black packed a small canvas bag with the tools of his trade before setting out.
There were no lights on as he drove past the house. Fortune was with him. He parked two blocks down along the street and walked back. A sweet California breeze caressed his senses. What seemed ages ago he recalled another night not dissimilar to this one when he had entered his sister's room and had his perverted way with her. He knew it was wrong but the guilt lent a sense of power to the act.
Like tonight his veins surged with electricity and a vibrant sense of that which he really was... the dark one, the avenger of all things right and good. If God so loved a sinner that he gave his only Son to be brutalized, nailed to a wooden cross, and left for the birds to peck out his living eyes then He must surely adore a man like Oscuro.
The windows stood open, more than likely to allow the breeze inside and not an invitation to Oscuro. Still, he took it as a good omen. Removing his shoes before slitting the screen with a silent blade he slithered through the opening serpent-like and just as deadly. Removing the ball-peen hammer from his canvas bag Oscuro made his way toward the sound of soft snoring.
He preferred the jack knife. He enjoyed the cutting. He loved watching the life slip out of his conquests as the blood gushed from their severed arteries pooling at his feet in warm viscous puddles. It was too dangerous tonight, however. One wrong move and he would be discovered, the neighbors roused from their slumbers by the horrific shrieks issuing forth from his mistakes.
He stood in the darkness watching quietly as the couple slept while allowing his eyes to adjust properly. Oscuro loved the calm little moments before the storm broke. The man lay on his back uncovered. He lay limp, impotent, nestled amid unruly sheets. The angel who had brought him here lay on her side facing away from her mate. From the movement of her body and the sound of her breathing Oscuro knew she was asleep too.
Oscuro couldn’t help but envy him. The man would never know death had him in its grip. The hammer blow to the center of his forehead sounded like a cork popping from a celebratory champagne bottle, nothing more, and the snoring ceased immediately. Awakened by the silence or maybe by the spasms of her lover dying next to her the girl perhaps seeing darkness deeper than death moving toward her squealed a sharp little yelp before she too succumbed to the hammer.
Though he had aimed to knock her out and not to kill she had jerked away from him at the last instant. The blow landed on her temple and not behind her ear as he intended caving in the side of her head. She was dead before he could curse his bad luck.
"It's still alive."
He whispered to the dark while putting a hand on her still moving belly, assuring himself that all was not yet lost. Moving quickly now, he closed the windows, pulled down the shades, and flipped on the bedside light. He wished he had more than a quick moment to admire his handiwork but he knew time was vicious when taken for granted. Removing a scalpel from the black bag he carried he began to carve.
Chapter 27—Jack and Justine
"I don't remember much, Roger."
"Tell me what you do remember, Billy."
“Traveling here on the Greyhound bus I met a little boy named Johnny. He told me about being scared of the ocean. He thought things were watching him from way down deep in the water … things that he couldn’t see. But they could see him. He told me how he dreamed of a ghost… how he told his father about it but his father didn’t believe him. The ghost grabbed him and he woke up screaming. I wondered if he thought the things in the ocean were ghosts no one could see but him.”
Billy and Roger had closed up the tavern a couple hours earlier; now they sat at the bar downing shots of brandy and chasing them with glasses of ale. Billy knew Lisa was waiting for him upstairs but Roger seemed so down tonight he hated to leave his friend alone.
“That little boy might be right, Billy… maybe there are things deep down in the ocean, things that watch us and call out to us… like ghosts. Tom Three Deer tells me how the land is always trying to get back to where it came from, way down under the ocean, where it belongs. He says the Indians believe the Pacific Ocean has no memory. Maybe the land senses the forgotten ghosts there, waiting. The land is patient though. Tides and great storms sweep in from the ocean washing away the land little by little, sending it home. One day my wife drove home in a storm like that.”
“I didn’t know you’re married, Roger.”
“I’m not any more, not for a long time. The storm washed away part of the road and apparently Justine didn’t see it… my wife's name was Justine. My son Jack was with her on that trip. He would have been about your age if he had lived, Billy. They’d been to San Francisco to see her mother. I should have gone with them but I felt it was important that I stay and run the bar. That and I couldn’t stand the thought of being with my mother in law for two days.”
Billy sensed what was coming.
“Anyway… when she didn’t come home that first day, I called her mother. She told me my wife and son had left hours ago. So I called the highway patrol. They told me I had to wait twenty four hours to file a missing person report. So I went out looking for them myself. God, the roads were all flooded and I didn't make it more than a few miles down the road before I had to turn around.
"Later, Tom Three Deer and Mouse went with me. Mouse had a big truck with stacks coming out of the bed… we drove through standing water four feet deep and never stalled once. But we couldn’t find them or the car. We looked for three days before Yelena finally helped us find them.
“Her car had fallen over three hundred feet into a ravine and was partially buried by a mudslide. Yelena took my hand and pointed at a map telling me to look at the very spot where we would find the car. It was the damnedest thing that ever happened to me. I never believed that people had psychic powers like that. I thought they were charlatans and fakes, just out to make money off fools who did believe in that malarkey. I didn't want to go at first… I told her Justine would have never gone that way… that we were wasting our time. She insisted though. Tom and Mouse were going to go without me so I relented.
“When we drove to that spot on the map that Yelena indicated we found another car there first. It wasn’t Justine’s car but a different one that had gone off the ledge. There were people inside, all dead… a whole family… a man and his wife and two boys. And God help me relief swept over me knowing it wasn’t my family… but then Tom Three Deer saw another car… Justine’s car… nearly buried in rubble with only the tail light visible. A mud slide had covered the rest of the car. Her and Jack were dead. The coroner ruled they’d been killed in the fall so at least they didn’t suffer. I thank God for that.”
“Jesus Christ, Roger, I’m so sorry.”
Billy got up to go around the bar to hug him… the man was so big Billy couldn’t put his arms completely around him but he held him close for a few seconds until Roger shook loose.
“I don’t like to talk about it much, Billy.”
Roger wiped the tears from his eyes with a white bar towel.
“I feel so guilty about what happened. You know, sometimes I think that if I don’t talk about it, none of it happened at all. But it did happen. It’s just so hard to remember that time of my life, and hating myself for not being there with them. Maybe if I’d been driving… so you see, I kind of envy someone like you and this land and the sea where we live… someone, something, water without memories.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Roger. If you’d been with them, you might well have died too.”
“Oh, I know that… I’ve told myself that a hundred thousand times over the last thirty years. I started thinking of your old bible full of pictures the other night at home, late, when I couldn’t sleep. I used to keep a framed photograph of Justine and Jack on the mantle above the fireplace.
"Actually, Justine is the one who put it there, just before they died. They are standing together smiling in the sunshine with the blue ocean behind them. I took the photograph on a day we went to the shoreline for a walk along the cliffs. We brought a lunch with us and had a picnic in the sand dunes as we watched the tide rolling in… one of those perfect days… you know the kind… at least I hope you do.
“That picture of Justine and Jack always seemed like the first thing I saw when I walked into the house each night. And every time I saw it, a wave of sadness washed over me. So one night I put it in a drawer… I hid it away, like you hide your bible away. But after you told me about how you did that, I went home and took the photograph out of the drawer. I looked at it a long time.
"And then I put it back on the mantle so I can see it every time I come home. It doesn’t make me sad to see it anymore. It makes me happy to know that I found love with the most beautiful woman in the world and that we were raising the most wonderful son together. And I recall how we might have had some bad days but we had one perfect day. And I have the photograph to prove it.”
“I remember you telling me the other night that I should take out my bible and look through the pictures, but every time I go to open the drawer, something stops me… a pain in my stomach tells me that maybe I don’t want to know who are in those pictures and what they once meant to me. Maybe it’s better to forget, Roger. You just said you envy me that.”
“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t… I don’t know, Billy. I’m not a religious man. I’ve never been to church. I don’t know as I even believe in God. But I don’t disbelieve either. I’ve always suspected we all find God in our own way… that we each have a path to walk. And the memories that we form along the way inform us on the goodness of our life. I don’t want to tell you what to do… but don’t be afraid of memories. That’s my advice. We have them for a reason.
“If I were you, Billy, I’d open up that old bible and go through those pictures… if nothing else but to sort out your feelings about your father and your mother. But then again, maybe not… maybe it’s only the liquor talking. Either way, whatever you decide, it sounds to me like you’ve got yourself a nice keepsake, something you can pass down to your own children and them to theirs.”
“If I ever have any, that is.”
Billy laughed as he felt his face redden.
“Let’s close up shop and go home… maybe you and Lisa can get started on that.”
Roger winked like an old owl as he clapped Billy on the shoulder.
Chapter 28—Cooking
She remembered.
Yelena Ivanoff had done the cooking at Twenty Nine Katz for what seemed like centuries but only during lunch hour now. She turned seventy eight years old in the spring and though she didn’t want to quit working altogether—she was waiting for someone—she sensed the time had arrived to slow down.
She’d started to work at the tavern a few years after Roger Barnes renovated and reopened it… over thirty years ago. She came to California looking for an old friend but her friend had moved away. Yelena left an abusive husband behind in Chicago, arriving in Little River out of money, praying fervently, and asking her god for a sign.
She understood She caused her car to break down in front of Twenty Nine Katz. At first Yelena didn't care to go inside when she saw all manner of rough-looking men entering. After sitting in the car trying to start it until the battery went dead she knew she had to hunt for a phone to get help.
She remembered the light being very dim inside the tavern and standing there a few seconds blinking letting her eyes adjust from the bright sunshine out of doors. A man walked by her looking her up and down turning and raising his eyebrows at his friends sitting at a nearby table.
In those days she was still a beautiful woman with big boobs and she didn’t like the way the man looked at her; she averted her eyes, casting them down and to the right, staring at the floor… surprised to see such a beautiful sight… someone had taken great care to sand and refinishing the old wood making it look new again. A few seconds later a nice-looking woman approached her.
“My name is Justine. Can I help you? I couldn’t help but notice you look lost. I’ve never seen you here before.”
“My name is Yelena.”
Yelena spoke the words in her halting English.
“My car no start.”
The woman took Yelena by the arm leading her to the bar where a short round man with a bushy beard came over to speak with them. The man said to call him Roger Barnes. Yelena understood that he owned the tavern. He set a phone down in front of her pointing to the phone book beside it. But she shook her head.
“I have no money.”
She started to cry. She hated feeling so weak and alone.
Justine took Yelena by the arm leading her away from the bar into the back of the building to the kitchen. Something smelled very good and all the appliances looked new and shiny. It made her happy to be in such a place. She motioned for Y
elena to sit so she did. She watched as Justine ladled out soup into four bowls after placing them on a tray and then lifting the tray into the window looking out at the bar area.
“Order up!”
Justine shouted out the words and then she took a slip of paper down from a clothesline laying it on the tray before walking over to Yelena.
“Do you need a job, Yelena? We need a cook, a good cook. Do you want to make money?”
“Yes, yes, I can cook. I know how.”
She ended up working in the kitchen for the rest of the day into the night, cooking hamburgers, ladling out soup, slicing onions and garlic, serving up salads. Justine seemed impressed with her work. With the night’s work finished, she took Yelena outside leading her up a set of stairs showing her an apartment above the tavern.
“You can stay here, Yelena. Until you find another place you can stay here.”
“Thank you, Miss Justine... thank you.”
Yelena had learned most of her English by reading a dictionary at first and then magazines. She watched a lot of television when she first came to America so she understood English much better than she spoke it. The American man who married her and brought her home didn’t enjoy talking with Yelena… he prided himself on the fact that he’d married a beautiful Russian woman. When she tried talking with him, he walked away refusing to listen. Finally, after many years of trying to be a wife, she left him.
She knew her cooking was plain but she also knew how good it tasted. She’d been cooking nearly her whole life. Over time, she became more familiar with the English language, able to speak more fluently with her benefactors.
“How long have you owned this… how do you say… tavern?”
Yelena had finished working her shift and was sitting at the bar with Justine… at the end of it where the employees congregated, away from the customers. Yelena enjoyed having a few shots of vodka before going upstairs to her apartment. If she went up there too early the noise of the tavern downstairs made her lonely.
