The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6)

by Clayton Lindemuth

  “Center of the wheelhouse. I like that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If you’re irreplaceable, who else works here?”

  “No one. The receptionist, Viv. Vivian. Vivian Mancuso. She lives in the green house on Crestwood — ”

  I pull Smith and blast one piece of lead into his nuts.

  He go down on the pavement screamin’ and I leave him a minute while I fish Church out the trunk. Now I’m here I see I coulda likely done the whole thing without Church’s body and that blood’s gonna be there ’til I yank out the carpet and hose the metal. But at the time, hell, I didn’t know if I’d need the corpse or not. So as the general rule, I figure I take the corpse. Maybe rethink that, goin’ forward.

  Almost slip a disc but the headless bastard’s on the pavement.

  “Hey, Dick?”

  He’s cryin’ and gruntin’ thirty feet off, crawled all the way back to the metal door he come outta. But with half his blood stretched across cement they ain’t much in his veins to do the work of livin’.

  I walk to him. Look back at Stinky Joe in the passenger seat. Ain’t even interested enough to get out the car.

  “Dick, you see why a minute back I said the general lesson wasn’t for you?”

  His eyes is beady and don’t move off front ’n center. His breath come in quick little pulls.

  “It’s ’cause you’re soon to die. Now I also said all this is bullshit. None of this is real. I want to put your evil ass mind at ease. You ain’t here now and you never really was. It’s like your brain’s a television set, see? The picture comes from… They got this place the unions can’t organize, right? That’s how I remember it. It ain’t the local, is all.”

  His breath is fast and his eyes don’t fear me.

  “You think death’ll get you off the hook, but for fuckers like you, death is the hook.”

  He stares forward like I ain’t even talkin’ at him.

  “You think you just disappear? No, Dick. You got the confrontation with the Holy, comin’ next.”

  He’s lookin’ forward to black space and nothin’, but that’s on account he’s a materialist, and like Mags say —

  “Dick, here’s what you don’t understand. The problem with materialism is nothing real is material. Dick? … Dick?”

  Chicago Mags

  “You aren’t responsible for being a man, or hailing from North Carolina, or for experiencing the lessons that taught you what you think you know. You’ve done things, though. You’ve caused other things to happen. You’re definitely in the causal chain of your reality. But responsibility for the causal chain doesn’t reside in a single link, somewhere in the middle. Does that make sense?”

  “More and more.”

  “True, maximal responsibility lies with the prime cause and that’s the chain’s creator. The divinity who set everything in motion. That’s why it’s important to love all. We are infinitely forgiven because God is just, and he knows the highest responsibility for creating evil lies with the one who created good. And that’s why we are to love others the same way. He loves us and gives all for us. He died for us — whether you take that figuratively or as a fact of history. He did that for you and me. But also, the other people, the ones you sent forward. God loves them the same way and forgives them the same way. And you think about how unlucky some of them were, in how they came to be the people they came to be, then maybe the most wonderful thing you could hope for would be that they would have the same forgiveness and freedom as you enjoy. Truly good people, I think, are those who spend so much time aware of their own lack of holiness, they see other people as brothers and sisters in an epic struggle to be good, instead of seeing them as failed human beings whose destruction would somehow bring about a better, more just world.”

  I never been so convicted.

  “I went off the rails when my brother give me the curse. If I want to live like you say, I’d need to go back to the beginning somehow.”

  “Your ten-year-old innocence is still in you. You just have to expose it. Our best never leaves us. It always resides within, even if we can’t find it.”

  Says Chicago Mags:

  “Nietzsche said good and evil are false constructs. The world doesn’t work that way. The world is about advancement, about living, about embracing power. And he’s right. The animal world is all about power. But the non-material — the higher reality we glimpse in our eternal selves is all about love. Here on material earth, the false dichotomy of good and evil is just another structure that’s used by one group of men to enslave another. The men who don’t believe in good and evil enslave those who do — and they bind them with their beliefs. But consciousness is eternal. It’s everything, and it’s full of vibrant love, and when you glimpse it you want to share it. Love is bigger than good and evil, so much that when you experience it on a cosmic level you want to share it with everyone, regardless of what they believe about this or that. Good and evil. Little things. Everything is a little thing compared to God’s love.”

  “The evil people get love too?”

  “If you still think they’re evil you’ve missed the point. They need and deserve as much love as you or anyone else, and they’ve probably gotten less. We’re all evil. We’re all good. Remember, it’s a false dichotomy designed by people who know they can control people through fear and guilt. Have you ever noticed the people who enforce the rules always seem to carve out an exception for themselves? Ever notice the police are allowed to speed and politicians trade stocks on inside information? They don’t care if they break the rules because they know there’s no good or evil behind them.”

  She’s moved on while I’m still stuck.

  “Bullshit. The dogfighters. The pedophiles — you sayin’ that ain’t evil?”

  “I’m saying broken people need love, and good and evil are labels that allow us to hate, instead.”

  Shake the head so the last nonsense falls back out. “All the rottenest bastards get the love too?”

  “Don’t you want them to?”

  “Nah, shit. That’s great.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, hell. Love it.”

  “You’re being facetious. The men you sent forward are better off where they are now. Dysfunctional people here aren’t going to be dysfunctional there. It’s just like, I don’t know. Remember before when I talked about coming to earth and being empodded in a baby?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Someone has to buy the jackass ride. Not everyone can buy the Roosevelt ride, or the Ghandi ride, or whatever. Some folks have to be the assholes. There’s only so many rides. But we all go home when the ride is over. All of us.”

  “Wait a minute. You mean I done this world and them a favor?”

  “I suppose you could frame it that way. Yeah. We are all going to cross the same bridge, or sequence of experiences from this state of consciousness to the next.”

  “How you know?”

  “Because doctors have interviewed thousands and thousands of people who medically died and then were revived, to find out what they remembered.”

  “Oh.”

  I tell her ’bout the old folks in the hospital, what the one that passed said, and why I couldn’t steal his duds to break out the hospital. Then I tell her ’bout the polo shirt and why I thought to glance at her rack. Which I still adore despite her nonsense.

  Chicago Mags smiles. Mouth all bent up.

  “Let me put it to you straight. Each of the men you killed crossed a tunnel of light and at the other side, were greeted by an all powerful, loving force that reviewed their lives with them. In a timeless instant they understood how they harmed you with their words and actions.

  “They felt what you felt, experienced through your body and emotions. They cried on your dog’s grave with you because they felt your pain and knew their viciousness caused it. They carried that hurt with you while other men hunted you and tried to kill you. They felt your reluctance to use force — but they also
knew that tickle of happiness the killing created in you, Baer, because even though you are trapped where good and evil seem real, within that world you are good and good men do not tolerate evil. They knew you, Baer, more intimately than you knew yourself. They loved you more than you loved yourself in that moment or any since. They received total understanding of the harm they caused, then from that newly informed position, the wrongness and selfishness in their hearts was healed. They rejoined family and friends and others who arrived before them. So, instead of you feeling bad for the men you sent forward, and aside from the dead people not actually being harmed for being murdered, you’re still judging yourself harshly. You still forget your victims provoked you endlessly until you meted out your best version of justice. Out of all that you still don’t understand despite your flaws you’re the only good man in the crowd.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Frankie Black Boots Lloyd is dead.

  His son with the glitterin’ eyebrows who held the machine gun and filled Mags’ chest with lead… He’s dead.

  Abraham Church, kid fucker and body thief. Philosopher murderer.

  ’At fucker’s dead too.

  And the man — all I got was Dick — set up the body sellin’ business. He’s both nutless and dead.

  How ’bout Bambi and Bunny…

  Church said I'd find ’em at the trailer park visible from 82 afore Carbondale. I sit in the Eldorado at the park office and watch. Dark out. People need a upgrade on the security lights.

  No one pay attention to a car with no one inside, so I slink low in the seat and watch over the hood. Recall it wasn’t ten hour ago I wipe Mags’ blood off my face so I could talk to Cinder and not look the madman.

  He seen it anyway.

  But not ten hours and the last of these people killed Corazon and Mags is ’bout to die too.

  I got Frank’s blood and Church’s blood on my hands, maybe equal to what I washed of Mags’ blood. I think on that. The blood spilt’s already equal. Like I get the cue from on high: proportion.

  I made the proportionate response. Time to move on?

  But that don’t sit. Man don’t kill evil bein’ proportionate. He got to exterminate that shit. Murder it. And since civil man can’t risk all his other obligations, he got the Destroyer circlin’ the herd with his gaze pointed at the dark beyond, watchin’ for red eyes.

  "Don't get out the vehicle, Joe. When I come back, we’re haulin’ ass for the next. You hear?"

  Joe look off to the pine .

  I leave him with the windows down and step out the vehicle with Smith in hand. Pull Glock from under the seat and take it too, since Bambi and Bunny is girls and with all them tits, I might get confused.

  Out left the trailers look tinny like enough sun and wind and the paint just evaporate. Must be the half dead streetlight. On the right they’s no light at all.

  Pull the flask from my jacket pocket and press it next my ribs with the arm cast. Twist the cap and take a long gurgle. Alcohol go down like lava mixed thin. I gulp a couple more, one for Corazon and one for Mags. One for my mother and one for Fred. In no time I got the flask empty and wonder why I didn’t just work the jug at the car.

  Adequately fueled for judgment work, I go rightward into the dark.

  Tromp like I got a purpose but with all these trailers I still don't know which has Bambi and Bunny. If I don't find it, these Jezebels live another day to help murder another girl or woman or man. Or sell body parts. Or whatever else they do. Spread the syphilis.

  Women got to have honor too.

  Use to be noble. Woman knew her place and you could spoil her and she'd stay there, honorable and decent, even if most often ornery and mean. Some rare women’d treat you even better for the spoilin’. Them days she got the respect back so she give the respect due. Man and woman as them natural selves.

  And a boy never beat a girl ’cause no man near’d tolerate it, and no woman’d leave her man ignorant. They’s a fuckin’ team. Plus, half the women was as strong as half the men and could stamp that shit out on they own. Life was hard for both but they knew who was who.

  Where?

  Thought it was past but maybe it’s the world to come. But right now men ain’t men so it’s no wonder women ain’t women. Can’t expect a woman to be a lady when her man’s got a pussy too.

  Nowadays, some of these piss flaps use the biological advantage agin a man’s noble soul — what few’s left that got one — and take advantage. When they do, they give no quarter. Like any evil man they’ll use the best tool they got, tits, a pistol in the purse, another man with a club, whatever. They’ll beat a man to death and throw him in a Ryder truck. Sell his pickled parts.

  I heft Smith, cinch the hand tight on the grip. Nice to have a gun don't fit the small my back. This 44 Smith almost need the big of the back.

  Thinkin’ of the back give me an idea, on cue.

  These girls maybe know how to turn the wrenches but they wasn’t at the garage. Maybe they got another way to generate the cash flow.

  First trailer I come to I circle slow, listen for the sounds of money-paid love. The bangin’ moanin’ rattlin’ yellin’ sounds any pig’d make ridin’ them sows.

  First trailer got a granny with her eyes pressed agin the television. I doubt Bambi carries on like she does under the nose of her mother, but the thought occurs a woman's age don't say shit about her willingness to do wrong. So I circle the trailer and when they’s no sounds but what's coming out the idiot box, I leave the idiot to it.

  Next trailer light’s flat out, no car… Circle it and nothing.

  On the gravel roadway I scan the line. This joint’s the Taj Majal of trailer courts. On and on. Kinda purty with the lights in a row and the fuzzy glow halos, but big enough I’ll likely need ’til dawn to find the girls.

  On to the next abode.

  A man and woman on the couch. Young black haired and scruffy — both his face and her legs.

  Next trailer got the front light on over the cement block pile makes the steps. Closer I get the more the drums and bass shake the pantleg. Feel that bullshit in the chest. Can’t get close on account the front light so I keep on the gravel and once past cut left across the dirt to the back wall. Next trailer beyond’s dark inside so I got the right climate for surveillance work. Slip along the wall of the party trailer to the gap of light coming from the first window.

  I get the right angle and it’s a woman’s arm but more burnt tan than redneck pale. She move out the way so another dark skinned girl can come by.

  “Hands in the air you pervert! I said now!”

  Voice of a man, low pitch and frayed at the edge. Liar.

  Still watching the glass, says I, “You didn’t say now. Not earlier. I mean you said it just now, but not afore like you said. Follow?”

  “Uh — ”

  “Friend, I understand. You saw me here and got excited. Truth went out the window. You’re under a lotta stress I bet.”

  I turn. He got a pea shooter, looks pink like a lady’s purse gun.

  Since I already got Smith in hand, I turn the wrist ninety degree and give him the profile. Ease the arm out the shadow.

  “Friend, I want you to hear me. I’m the Destroyer. I circle the waters protectin’ the fleet. I circle the herd and keep out the wolf. You fuck with me, you’re fuckin’ with the one who put his ass on the line to keep softies like you safe in your dream world. And I assure you, if you want, you can shoot first. But in none of the six hundred million universes Chicago Mags told me about, in none do you shoot last.”

  He lower the pistol hand.

  “Chicago Mags?”

  “Philosopher, deceased. You wouldn’t know her. Get on back to your party and I’ll get to mine.”

  “Uh, yeah. Uh, thank you?”

  He turn.

  “Hey! I’m lookin’ two white girls. One’s got a rack like — ”

  “They’re not on this side of the park.”

  “Very kind. Their place… Any l
andmarks? Car? Paint?”

  “There’s always a black Ford Explorer parked in front.”

  “Always?”

  “Most always. They each have one.”

  “Perfect. Good night, sir.”

  “Uh, yeah. Good night.”

  Back the way I come. Stop at the Eldorado. “I got information she’s up this way, Stinky Joe. Be along shortly.”

  Stand by the door.

  “You still ain’t talkin’ to me?”

  Nothin’.

  “Or on account I’m a free man and I’ll drink when I choose?”

  Stinky Joe hold his tongue.

  I bend and look inside the Cadillac.

  No Stinky Joe.

  Guess he heard the mountain’s call too. Or maybe he wanted some privacy to dump a load, and wander off.

  I keep walkin’ ’til I spot the black Ford Explorer. Turn ’round the bumper and six feet afore I reach the front door it open. Man got his back to me, maybe just paid one these girls.

  Scoot fast; yank the screen with my broke arm and shove the man back inside with my good. One the girls screams and jiggles back the hall. Other’s on the couch pullin’ up her undies. The man swipes a paw at my broke arm but he don’t know the Almighty put a stink on him to protect my path. He miss my arm. I hook my left boot behind his legs and shoulder-stomp right through him. Swing Smith in his face, now he’s on the floor lookin’ up.

  “Stay down. Take off your belt.”

  A knife flip-wobbles past in the air and bounce off the wall. I shovel Smith in my holster and grab the blade off the floor. Chuck it back where it come so fast the dipshit on the floor ain’t looked up and Bambi’s still dumpin’ boobs in a bra.

  But that skinny-hipped Bunny is stuck in the guts.

  “Leave it there,” says I.

  Aimed too low… still, I’ll work with the results.

  Hand and Smith meet at the hip and in zero seconds the 44’s back in the carpet man’s face. “Move! Gimme that belt. You — Bambi — get your ass down there with ’im.”

  She moves.

  Bunny pulls the knife out her guts and looks at it like she can’t decide if throwin’ it agin makes sense.