Daniel closed his eyes briefly and breathed in slowly, counting, willing the fluttering in his chest to subside, ignoring the sting in his arm. It was getting sunny. It was the sun in his eyes that made him see those flashes. He breathed deeply, holding the breath for a moment the way he had been taught in group session, and released, nodding to his Uncle who was manning the rake again, regaining control. Focusing on the moment and the rope, Daniel grounded himself for the work ahead.
~VI~
Several hours later they broke for lunch. One side of the boat was home to several bags of little neck and cherrystone clams, several more having already been crammed in the covered trunk in the stern where Tim now sat, the rake resting midship. It was a good day and they were almost out of bags and tags. As Daniel pulled their cooler closer, Tim took a few buckets of water and splashed the clams so they would not dry out in the bright afternoon summer sun. Daniel sat on an overturned bucket and they both unwrapped the aluminum foil from their sandwiches. It was unusually quiet; normally they would hear trains on the New Jersey side or police cars in addition to the gulls above their heads. Today they could hear the unusual chimes of an all too familiar ice cream truck at a point inland close enough for them to make it out.
“Hey, isn’t that Maxfields?” asked Daniel, already knowing the answer. “You can always tell the difference from their trucks and Mr. Softee. I wasn’t too fond of their products as I recall,” he said taking a swig of Coke to wash down a bite of his ham and Swiss.
“Yeah. Maxfields has that wacky seabell, making it sound like the buoys out here on the channel,” Tim said thinking his nephew was remembering a few more things from childhood. “So you remember Maxfields. That’s great, kiddo.”
“Yeah, Mom and Dad used to warn me not to venture far from where the truck parked ‘cause everyone was in a panic from the Son of Sam.”
“Yeah, your mom was always such a hysterical bitch.” Tim downed the last mouthful of his Coke, reached into the cooler and grabbed another glass bottle, found the bottle opener and cracked the cap.
Daniel stopped chewing to stare at his uncle. Insult. Offense. He wanted to shove the bottle opener through his Uncle’s eyeball.
“Sorry, kiddo. I got no respect for a woman who did what your mother did. And besides, Son of Sam never came to Staten Island. So to scare you like that —that was total bullshit.” He went back to his sandwich as Daniel went back to his own.
“So, tell me Dan,” Tim piped up a few minutes later, after throwing a bottle-cap at a gull who swept down a little too close for comfort. “What else comes to mind? What else are you starting to remember? Maybe a little more about Pouch?” Tim crumpled the foil from his sandwich and drank the rest of his second Coke, stood up facing away from his nephew and the clams, dropped the front of his overalls to the waist. Daniel heard his Uncle unzip and start laughing in his brash way as the man urinated on a gull that had been floating off the port bow.
“Sorry, as I told you Uncle Tim, most of it is really all a blank,” replied Daniel hoping this would shut down the questions.
“Ok, well when you do remember, it doesn’t hurt to talk about it,” replied Tim, zipping up, turning around, and sitting down with a smile that made the back of Daniel’s neck crawl. With a stirring uneasiness in his stomach, Daniel half smiled back telling himself there was nowhere for him to go. He put the thought of the orange-sheathed knife from his mind and for now, he had to endure his Uncle’s persistent questions. The two fisherman packed up the trash from their lunch and went back to work.
Trying to make small talk over the next batch hauled up from the depths, Daniel smiled thinly. “Not bad Uncle Tim, great looking catch. We’re nearly out of bags.”
“Looks it, you’re pulling on that rope like a pro, like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget, eh kid? Let me know the numbers when you’re done sorting,” Tim replied, inquiring about the amount of each type of clam.
“You’re right, I guess.” Daniel swallowed with a twinge, wishing he did remember going out with his father. The sorting basket was heavy and Daniel slid it toward the culling rack that was set up at the rear port side of the boat. When he bent over to pick up the basket he noticed a broken clay pipe amidst the catch. It was usual to find junk in with the catch. Usually, Daniel had to be careful not to slash up his hands on twisted bits of metal. There was lots of glass, but that was all pounded smooth by the sand and the tides. Most of the refuse just got tossed over the side. Last week though, Daniel found the fluted bowl of an old pipe, a little like this one but more ornate. He had pocketed that one. This one was just the stem really. He tossed it back. Digging into the pile a little bit more, he saw something glitter amongst the shells. He couldn’t place it just by looking at it. Figuring it was pottery or an old bottle, he went to toss it over the side. But it was too smooth. It reminded him of a piece of volcanic glass twinkling beneath the mud and sand, small, black, and triangular, sitting in the pile of clams. He looked over at his Uncle who was adjusting the clamps on the pole and rake, then back at the item in the basket. Of all the junk that the sea tossed up, this was not something familiar.
“Uncle Tim, have you ever found anything weird while clamming?” he asked as he reached for the palm sized item, removed his glove, and began wiping off the mud with his fingers. The item wasn’t as worn as a piece of glass, but it did show years being in the water. It was a quarter inch thick and fit firmly in his palm.
“I once found a license plate that had a bite taken out of it, like something from fucking Jaws. Another time —on the same damned day which was just after a really serious as shit storm that must’a kicked up a bunch of crap from the deep— I found an old bra that looked like it had fucking barnacles on it and something that looked like a fucking dildo. But, you mean like bottles and shit? That’s not weird kid.” Tim laughed in reply without looking at Daniel as the man maneuvered the pole ahead of him to adjust the lower clamps. “Sure, most of the time you find shit, like broken toys, clay pipes, liquor bottles, nothing really worthwhile.” As Tim began to lower the rake into the water, a wind gusted up, hitting the ship broadside, causing the small vessel to broach with such violence that Tim was knocked off balance to the point that he almost lost his grip on the pole. The rake being in the water lurched forward, almost dragging Tim overboard as another wash rocked the boat. Tim recovered quickly enough to save the rake and himself. He pulled the rake up and threw it on deck, looking at his nephew who just sat looking at the palm of his own hand.
“What the fuck, Dan?” Tim knew he shouldn’t be angry, but the boat heeled as something big, moving fast, or a storm blowing hard gripped their boat, catching them in a wash which shook the small vessel. “What you got there?” Tim took a few minutes to breathe as the boat steadied, but Daniel didn’t move. Tim didn’t know if it was a quiet meditative moment, some breathing exercise learned from a therapy session. Daniel was either purposefully ignoring him, or under some sort of spell and not able to hear Tim at all.
Daniel didn’t notice that the boat almost capsized, almost tossing his Uncle down into the deep. Just before the wind caught the boat, Daniel had turned the black object over in his hand and sat transfixed by the raised relief on the opposite side. He turned it back, wiping all the bits of mud, sand, and seaweed off it completely. It was black stone. One side was perfect in its velvety smoothness. The other side was glassy, but had a raised relief and a carven image. The stone glyph was not Arabic or Hebrew, nor Chinese, but something entirely alien to Daniel’s knowledge of language and foreign letters. Daniel scooped a handful of water onto the object to wash it clean and he saw that a primary raised symbol was sculpted onto center of the object and tracing over the relief was painted a yellow that glistened in the sun. It reminded Daniel of a flickering torch and it was uncannily like that morphing, twisting, mutating sign from his dreams. Some internal voice, slightly detached from his own, told him he had the orientation wrong, that he was holding it inverted. Turning t
he object, he now noticed crude scratches of other symbols, smaller than the central one which they surrounded. These were somehow connected to the other. Daniel’s first thought was of an octopus, but with only three tentacles.
Tim stood, trying to decide whether to lower the rake again or to lean in and slap his nephew. He resisted the urges as the wind blew up again, this time fiercer. The boat heeled again and Tim grabbed the cull rack to prevent himself from being pitched over the side. As he lurched forward, he saw that Daniel was gazing at some thing and not just the palm of his hand. Undeterred, the boy did not turn his eyes away from object regardless of how the boat listed.
“Hey, Dan!” yelled Tim. “What the fuck the matter with you?”
The wind knocked the boat back and forth, the water rose, pitching the boat. Daniel whispered, “The Yellow Sign has come.” He looked up, through his uncle, not seeing the man at all as the older man carefully stepped over the poles toward his nephew. Daniel stared out across the water at an ancient wooden boat, very much a cross between an Italian gondola and a Viking longship. It was empty and easily twice the length of their clam-boat and had the air of being much, much older. The wood seemed bare, but it was decorated richly in dark colors, and the surface of the wood was deeply carved. Swiftly, it came at the clam-boat as though it had intentions of ramming.
Standing next to his nephew, Tim looked in the direction his nephew stared but saw nothing save for a large circular wash coming their way. “Daniel, what the fuck, man?” Tim shouted into the wind that seemed to reach brackish fingers down into his throat to steal his words.
Daniel heard nothing but the shriek of the wind in his own ears. He saw nothing but the ship, laden with symbols which rippled. It was the boat from his dreams. The boat of the Yellow King. Daniel realized what the stone artifact was, that black thing he clasped in his hands to keep it from falling out of his grasp back into the dark waters. Daniel stood, the boat lurching. He felt the voice inside, the words come up. He was compelled. His mouth opened and the voice spoke through him: “By Hastur! From Carcosa, it comes! I am he. The Ferryman!” Daniel thrust his hand forward, displaying the Yellow Sign to the empty boat.
Before Tim could properly react, again the waves pitched the clam-boat, tossing Tim sidelong and over the poles. In the quick seconds before Tim twisted away from the rake’s tines, he landed on a lump of bagged clams, his hip cracking painfully, Tim saw Daniel fall. Daniel lost his footing as the boat rocked. He fell backwards into the rear compartment, hit the back of his head on the steel railing as he went down, and slipped into the black abyss of unconsciousness. But, instead of his hands relaxing, he gripped the artifact even tighter in his hand.
~VII~
Something wasn’t right. Darkness was everywhere. It was all and quiet and me. I didn’t feel life inside me. I didn’t feel it outside either. I tried to swallow, but couldn’t tell if I had a mouth any more. I did taste the ozone and ashes from my dream, though. Was I alive? Dead? Dissolved?
The quiet began to melt away as I heard the high-pitched wailing scream again. Like from my dream, but too far away for me to make out the words. For a few moments that were eons that were a blink of an eye, I realized I did have eyes again and they were closed. Opening them, there was still blackness. Not even the darkling stars met my vision —yet. Dimly I recalled falling on the clam-boat. Maybe I was blind? Blinking, I felt that sticky crud around my eyelids as though I had been asleep for a long time. Dreaming? But I didn’t remember going to sleep.
It felt like I was lying on my back. I had the sense that I had hands and I was me. So I tried to move one hand to wipe the crud from my eyes. Yet, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t move either hand. There was a weight around me like mud, but it shifted, churning, moving, and suddenly I was aware of resistance at my wrists and ankles. I tried to scream, “No! Shit, no! Not again please, please, please no no no not again.”
But no sound came out and no vision met my eyes. I was in darkness. My body wouldn’t respond. I was dead weight, flat on my back, unable to even cry out.
The screaming sounded a lot closer now, louder but the words still muffled. A thousand years flashed in another millisecond and small bits of the darkness began to shift, rippling like the water in the wake of the Yellow King’s Viking gondola. Grey outlines were revealed just beyond my feet that resembled a ghostly outline of the prow of the boat. It was the boat, slipping through the darkling space around me, whispering across time as it had earlier that day on Raritan Bay. But in an instant, all was black again.
I was able to swallow and tried to make a quick mental check of my body, just to make sure I really was still me. Unable to move my head, I was able to wiggle each toe on each foot, flex the muscles of my calves, thighs, buttocks. It was like my legs were cemented in place, but I knew they were there intact. I was able to sense all of my parts and it was all the same—arms, dick, fingers, elbows, shoulders, tongue, teeth—all of them were there, just paralyzed. I swallowed again, tasting burned soot; my throat was raw and dry. I heard the screams now, was able to pick out the words, but I didn’t understand them.
“I am come. I am he. By Hastur! The son!”
I blinked my eyes and the ripples came back, shifting, twisting, and the prow of the boat dipped out of the darkness about me. It held a kind of light inside it. A dark light, tinged with blue and deepest purple. I got the glimmer of a mound of coins in a fraction of a second and then time stretched again and I was an old man, ancient, worn, with the taste of time on my tongue. I wanted to laugh and to cry and to beg someone to forgive me.
But I didn’t know what I had done and I didn’t know who to ask.
Suddenly I heard a strange song trickling from the shifting darkness, a song of the stars and the chiming of the planets. It reminded me of a wet finger circling a wineglass and then the ringing, singing of the spheres formed a word. It was the name I could not remember from my dream. It was repeated in a refrain that brought tears to my eyes and washed away the ashes from my mouth: “Charon.”
Then I tasted words streaming out of my own mouth in a river, unceasing and I knew where the screaming was coming from. I couldn’t yet comprehend what I had been screaming, but then the mud and the pressure and the weight began to lift from my body enough so that I was able to cough, phlegmy, rattling— my chest heaved and the pain was a starburst causing dark stars to explode behind my eyelids. I couldn’t see the boat, but I knew it was here. By sheer force of will, focusing on the ringing, chiming, chanting of the name, “Charon. Charon. Charon” I stopped myself from screaming. But, I was still unable to recollect or comprehend what I had been yelling, or for how long.
The deep blue, purple light came back to radiate from the boat, bleeding into the space around me, filling my scope of vision and as I blinked, trying to move my head but unable to, all I saw held within the light were black stars. The moment I truly perceived them for what they were, I was unable to look away, as I had been unable to look away from the black stone artifact I had found in the clam basket earlier on Uncle Tim’s boat. Where was the artifact? A wash of anxiousness spilled over me. Finally I was gifted something genuine, something true and I lost it? I felt anger and betrayal and had my hands been free, I would have dashed my own brains at the first moment. The song picked up speed and lulled my mind into stillness and I knew the artifact was safe. Perhaps it was in the boat? Either way, I was unable to look away from the black stars.
“YOU ARE HE?”
A voice shouted from the stars and the cosmos unfolding around me, dark and stupefying. I thought I wet myself and I felt my core shaking at the severity of the voice. I blinked, trying to see if the King was in the boat, but I still only saw the grey shadow of the prow and the slight glimmer of the mound of coins as though I looked at them through the shifting, dark water of the sea.
“YOU ARE HE?” The voice repeated, deep, resounding, familiar.
I couldn’t tell if it was inside or outside of me, but I got the c
reeping sensation that the voice sounded like Dad.
Another millennia passed and I didn’t know how to answer. The voiced boomed a third time, reminding me of how Dad sounded when he used to get really pissed off: “YOU ARE HE?”
Without a question, without a second thought, I shouted that name in reply, “Charon! I am the Boatman!” I couldn’t rationalize it. There was that weird dissonance, discord, distance between my mouth and my mind. My throat constricted again, bitter, burned, as though I had smoked a thousand thousand cigarettes. I felt the whispering of ashes raining down from the heavens to bury me. My skin burned and I had the sudden thought of the buried bodies from Herculaneum and I wondered if that was where I was. If all my memories of the clam-boat and the stone artifact and Pouch Camp was all just some bizarre flash of another world and that I was dead in the pyroclastic flow of a volcano.
“Have you found the Yellow Sign?” The voice whispered this time, calmer, soothing almost. It was Dad. It had to be. I tried to shout his name, but my mouth wouldn’t listen to me. My brain hurt. Where was it, that black stone with the golden symbols that I had pulled from the basket? I tried the breathing exercises Dr. Peterson had showed me, and I tried to count back, but time did its strange flip-flop and the bottom fell out of my stomach as I recalled standing up on Uncle Tim’s clam-boat earlier, holding the artifact toward the strange gondola that had moved toward me. Wait, where was Uncle Tim? I realized those symbols upon that weird ship were the same on the artifact and the same that I painted on the mural and the canvas at home.
“Have you found the Yellow Sign?” Dad asked me again and I couldn’t help but think back to the last time I had seen Dad. Why was Dad asking me about the sign? What was the sign? I closed my eyes, not that it mattered and I saw the glittering golden glyph on the black stone and I saw the fire exploding at Pouch camp and all those things come out of the flames. I heard the screams and smelled burning flesh. I heard Jonathan shout names that slipped through my mind like water through a sieve. They were in a language no human tongue should ever utter, but Jonathan as stepped into the fire with his own artifact the creatures came out. Now, looking back, it was like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and I wonder if Jonathan’s artifact wasn’t Native American at all really, but a piece of the one true Ark. I remembered standing there while a column of black and blue and purple smoke rushed at me from the center of the fire. I felt my skin burning and I heard Dad telling me to run. I thought I was melting, but I couldn’t move and the smoke twisted like a great serpent and it had a yellow face covered in twisting tattoos like the Yellow King from my dream.
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