The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  “Rabies?” finished Finn as he pulled up a chair and sat down. “Yup. That coyote was drowning in it. The lab tests my dad ran on its brain confirmed it. It must have been bit by something like three weeks ago and by Saturday was ready to attack anything that moved. You got your first shots in the ER right?” he asked J.C., reaching for the salt shaker.

  J.C. nodded and massaged his upper arm where he must have received his injection.

  “So, four more shots, bro, and you’re good to go,” Finn said, turning the salt shaker upside down. It dumped its entire contents onto his fries. Finn looked over at J.C., who stuffed one of his own fries in his mouth, then smiled innocently back.

  “Man that sucks, Finn. Who would do that?”

  “Hmm…” mumbled Finn. Grace and I busted out laughing. Finn picked up a fry, shook most of the salt off and bit it in half. We spent the rest of the lunch period helping Finn brush the salt off his fries and helping him eat them before heading back to class.

  EIGHT

  THE GHOST OF LEWIS WOODS

  AFTER MINA’S ARRIVAL, the sounds and smells of sickness in her room made it difficult for me to fall asleep upstairs, and I often sacked out on the sofa. Meri knew having Mina move in was hard on me and invited me to sleep over at her house the following Saturday. She’d grinned and said, “We’ll have the guys over for movies and pizza, then kick them out and talk about how stupid they are all night.” That sounded good to me.

  On Friday, my actual birthday, my dad picked me up after school in the Demon and drove me to the BMV. I’d been waiting forever to take the driving test, but the butterflies flitting about my stomach strongly urged me to postpone it.

  “You’ll be fine,” my dad said, leading me into the dusty, wood-paneled lobby. There was a line of people waiting in front of the chipped white counter, and we took our place at the end of it. When it was my turn, the butterflies upped the ante and tried to crawl up my throat, but my dad was right. I did fine. I pulled in and out of parking spaces, made left and right turns, stopped and started at stop signs, merged into traffic and then conquered the cones. I passed with flying colors, and after grinning at the yellow smiley face sticker on the back of the camera, I received the most coveted prize in all of high school: my driver’s license.

  “Are those tears in your eyes?” I teased my dad as we walked out through the smudged glass door.

  “What? These? Nah. They had dust in there from the seventies. I’m allergic to dust that old.”

  He didn’t have to say anything. I knew he was proud. I just hoped he was proud enough to trust me with one of his most prized possessions.

  As soon as I walked in the door at home, I wanted to leave.

  “Dad, can I take the car?” How could he say no? It was my birthday, and I had a perfectly legit reason for borrowing it.

  “I should have seen that one coming,” he said, rubbing the top of his head. “What for?”

  “I have a chemistry project for school. I need to collect some water samples,” I said brightly. “And I’d really like to go by myself. Please? Please? It is my birthday.”

  “Where are you going?” Yes!

  “Down to the Rocky River.” After Michael’s death and the crazed coyote, I should have avoided the place, but it made the most sense; I knew that river best and would feel comfortable driving there. Besides, it was still light out, and I wouldn’t be gone long.

  “When will you be back?”

  “About two hours?”

  “Take your cell phone.”

  I hugged him with both arms, squeezed him tight and then held my hand out for the keys to the Demon.

  “You want to drive this old man?” he asked, grinning now.

  “She’s a she, Dad, and yes! We have a special bond.”

  He tossed me the keys. “Don’t be out past sunset.”

  I flew past him up to my room, grabbed the sample containers and stuffed them into my tote along with my inhaler, iPod and cell phone, which was charged. I paused in the doorway, then backtracked to my underwear drawer and dug out the Camels, tossing them and a book of matches into the tote as well. Maybe it was time I did a little experiment with them, too. It suddenly occurred to me that I wanted to know what the hell was so great about them that a person would willingly turn their health to shit rather than give them up. I nodded to myself. Yeah. I’d really like to know the answer to that.

  When I finally pulled out of the driveway, my dad was still rubbing his head, trying to look at ease.

  “Not too late!” he called after me. “We’re having birthday cake when you get back!”

  But I wasn’t thinking about him anymore. I had moved on. I was free.

  It had rained for the last three days, and I held the sample jar tightly while I dipped it into the furiously flowing river. After I screwed the lid back on and dropped it into my bag, I shook the ice-cold river water from my fingers and then stuffed them under my armpits for warmth. Check. Part one of today’s experiment was accomplished.

  I stood up then and surveyed the scene. The sky above was winter white and layered with steel gray cloud scraps that were being shoved relentlessly along by the higher altitude wind drafts. Down here at the bottom of the gorge the air was calm, and everything was heavy and damp and muddy. I looked for a place to sit while I thought about how to accomplish the second part of my experiment and found a large flat-topped boulder near the river’s edge. I settled down on it and hoisted the pink tote onto my lap.

  There in the bottom of the tote were the Camel cigarettes. I scooped out the half-empty box and examined it more closely. The camel on the front had only three tiny palm trees and two pyramids for shelter. The package proudly proclaimed that the tobacco therein was a Turkish domestic blend that had been around since 1913. How special. I turned it over and read the Surgeon General’s largely-ignored warning: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health. I looked up at the cold sky and choked back a laugh. I was glad someone considered suffocating to death a serious health risk.

  Well, let’s find out what all the hype is about. I started to pull one of the cigarettes out of the crumpled package, but paused midway and glanced over my shoulder. The road wasn’t thirty feet behind me, and cars were cruising by every few minutes, their tires splashing past on the flooded pavement. I felt guilty, like I was committing some heinous crime.

  What was I so worried about? I saw teens smoking almost every day. Aside from carding kids who tried to buy them, no one cared. I boldly pulled the cigarette out of the pack and held it between the knuckles of my first and second fingers like I’d seen other kids do, and started to dig for the matches and then sighed.

  “Shit. I can’t do this here.” I looked over my shoulder again. What if someone I knew drove by? What if someone my parents knew drove by? It would positively kill them, that’s what. I crammed the cigarette back into the pack, tossed the pack into my tote, then stood up and paced back and forth. The sound of leaves blowing in a stiff wind somewhere high above me reached my ears, and I looked up and back across the bridge toward my favorite spot in the park. The shriveled brown leaves of the oaks lining the cliff-top were rustling in the powerful wind gusts bullying their way past at the higher altitude. They were calling to me.

  I would have all the privacy I needed up there. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but now that I’d started this experiment, I was determined to see it through. If I didn’t, it would be like coaxing a jagged splinter half way out and then leaving the remainder of the task for another day. It would jab at me painfully until I had my answers. It would bleed.

  I pulled out my cell. Five-thirty. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half. Plenty of time. I turned back toward the car and murmured, “Let’s do this thing.”

  The Demon rumbled an affectionate hello and pulled smoothly back out onto Cedar Point Road, surging forward at the promise of a new challenge: the steeply-climbing zigzags that would carry us up the other side of the gorge to Lewis Woods.
There was no pitiful fight to the top with this car. Instead, we actually accelerated up and through the curves, shooting out of the mouth of the gorge with power to spare. I pulled into the puddle-filled gravel parking area, my heart beating fast, thinking, “I really, really love this car.”

  I hadn’t been to Lewis Woods since late August, since the day Michael died, and it was a different place. The heat, the humidity, and the bright sun-filled blue sky were gone. The parched golden grass of the field was now soggy and matted down. The summer birdsong had been replaced with the raking caws of black crows flapping by overhead. But the most striking difference of all was the foliage, which had changed from a woodsy green to a tattered blend of muddy yellow, burnt orange and brown. The transformation would have been complete if not for the pines. They remained a deep forest green and stood tall and proud in the distance, marking the entrance to the woods.

  As I struck out across the field, a cold gust of wind from behind lifted my shaggy braid and beat a syncopated tempo against the corner of my mouth. The wind pushed hard against my back, slicing through my fall jacket, urging me forward and into the woods.

  Dim lighting prevailed under the soaring pine rafters, like the inside of a church on any day but Sunday. All was still and quiet. I pressed on purposefully over the soft, pine-needled path, and it wasn’t long before I broke through the dense shade and was looking out over the gorge at the sheer face of the cliff in the distance. I hadn’t given any thought to how I would feel at that moment. I should have.

  My stomach rebelled without warning, and I sank to my knees. Tears seeped into the corners of my eyes, and my nose began to run. The images of Michael’s death—his body hitting the ground, the bright red blood erupting from his mouth, the anguish in his eyes—they all came back with cruel clarity, as if no time at all had passed since the accident. God…I shouldn’t have come here.

  I sat back on the chilly wet leaves and sniffed cold snot back up my nose. Then I pulled the Camels and matches out of my tote. I wanted to get this over with, get back to the warmth of the Demon and go home.

  The head of the match flared brightly to life in the waning light of the day. I touched the quivering flame to the tip of the cigarette and sucked in a breath to ignite the end. It glowed deep orange, and then the tangy taste of the Turkish tobacco flooded my tongue. My lungs burned. I held the smoke in anyway, determined to get the most out of the experience, but began coughing almost immediately. I held the cigarette away from me with one hand and waved the remnant smoke out of my face with the other until the coughing subsided.

  My fingers were shaking slightly as I tucked the end of the cigarette back between my lips and sucked in another lungful. It didn’t burn as badly, and I closed my mouth this time and held in the acrid smoke for a moment before breathing it out through my nose. I watched the smoke curl away from each nostril and then suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to vomit. Crap…I was going to be sick…

  “What the hell are you thinking, Genius?” came the soft, ragged whisper of a disgusted voice from over my shoulder. A chill wind followed the whisper, carrying with it a faint citrus and pine fragrance. My heart stopped. My breathing stopped. But my head was moving. It was swiveling around to size up whatever had been stalking me. If it was Shawn, how did he find me here? What the crap did he want? And if it wasn’t Shawn behind me, if it was something else—my mind froze short of letting any other images materialize.

  Back within the deepening shadows of the woods, a lone figure sat. He wavered in and out of focus like the image on a TV with poor reception. He was sitting on the wet fallen leaves, like me, with his elbows resting on his knees and his face buried in his hands. He was missing one Converse tennis shoe, and the toenails on that foot were torn and bloody.

  An ear-piercing scream balled itself up in my throat, but when my mouth opened, no sound came out. I threw my energy instead into back pedaling away like a crab on the run from a death-dealing gull at the shore. I felt a searing pain in my palm as my right hand came down on the forgotten cigarette, snuffing it out. He heard my sudden movement and lifted his face from his hands, startled, and at that moment, I had no doubt. The figure was Michael, and I had gone completely and utterly out of my mind.

  His eyes flew open wide, and his open hand shot out in front of him.

  “Shit! Can you see me?” he cried. “Wait! Oh God, please wait!”

  Yep, definitely crazy. Or maybe Mina’s been smoking pot disguised as Camel cigarettes? Did she have cancer, too? Nobody ever tells me anything. Disconnected thoughts like these strung together frantically in my head while I scrambled backward.

  Michael—for lack of a better name for my hallucination—shot to his feet and waved both hands in my direction, shouting, “Stop! The cliff! Oh, Christ!”

  I froze, then reached back with my fingertips and felt loose dirt clods and naked grass roots hanging over the edge of the cliff. A sudden updraft from the gorge blew up my back and lifted the curls at the nape of my neck; then my heart really started to pound, and I thought it would explode right out of my chest. I imagined my life ending right there, right then, with a blast of my blood spurting like a geyser out over the cliff. With that macabre thought, I finally found my voice.

  “No! No! No! No! You’re not real,” I chanted, covering my ears with my hands. All this time Michael remained very still, as if he was afraid any movement on his part would frighten me over the brink. I squeezed my eyes shut. If this was a hallucination, maybe it would just fade away in a minute.

  “Please…I need to—”

  “No, no, no…” I resumed chanting and dug through my tote for my iPod. I was going to drown out his voice, and then I was getting the hell out of here. With trembling hands and half-closed eyes I plugged my headphones into my ears, pushed myself up onto my feet and lunged forward, but my boots couldn’t gain any traction in the slippery wet leaves. I pitched forward and caught myself on my palms, which were scraped by the sharp thorny underbrush. I clenched my teeth and dug my fingers and toes deep into the cold muck like a sprinter at the starting block of a race. Then the adrenaline kicked in, and I took off at a dead run. I didn’t look back.

  The twilight-submerged trees whipped by in a confused rush. Good. That meant I was putting distance between me and my impending nervous breakdown. Then the next song on my Playlist blasted my eardrums with sound. I didn’t care what it was, as long as it was loud. I got my wish. The driving beat sent shock waves of strength through my body. I pumped my legs harder.

  Hell if I know what I am

  Black sheep or sacrificial lamb

  I can’t even see myself anymore

  I’m trapped, and I can’t break free

  It was “Hope Bleeds,” a Fading Fireflies’ hard rock hit. I hadn’t downloaded that song. Was it talking about Michael? Was God playing D.J. again? Could my heart pump any harder? I didn’t think so.

  But you…you broke the mold

  Left me here in the cold

  I want your arms around me now

  But they’re losing their warmth

  My lungs were burning. The air was turning to thick sludge. I slid to a stop in the middle of the path, unable to go any farther. Bent over with my hands on my knees, I tried to catch my breath. God? If that’s You? I swear on my life if you get me out of here with my sanity intact, I’ll never go into the woods alone again! I swear to you. I swear it.

  Let me be your Superman

  In the night, I’ll tie you down

  With me you’ll be safe on the ground

  ‘Cause hope don’t grow on trees

  It bleeds

  The coincidence was too perfect. “Let me be your Superman?” Was the Ubermensch or…or…demigod thing in the quote on the footbridge real? I yanked my headphones from my ears, hurled them away from me and squeezed my eyes shut. I dropped the tote onto the damp forest floor and felt around blindly for my inhaler. There was no freaking way I was opening my eyes. I didn’t want to know what might have caugh
t up with me by then. When my hand finally connected with the hard plastic case of my savior, I took a deep drag, then another, and then waited for the medicine to kick in.

  “Still have asthma?” murmured Michael from nearby, and then I heard him sigh. I tipped my head sideways to peer into the woods. He was leaning against a tree with his hands in his cut-off jeans’ pockets and looking up at me through his long lashes. His coloring was washed out, like a retouched black and white photo, and his muted, off-kilter flickering was frightening. But the look on his face and the stance of his body were more forlorn and lost than menacing.

  “Are you the Ubermensch?” I blurted out. He looked up, startled again.

  “Wh…what?”

  “The Ubermensch? S-s-superman?” I stuttered, backing away from him to the far side of the path and collapsing onto the forest floor. Nearly hysterical now, I covered my face with my hands and started to laugh.

  “I’m going crazy…or maybe I passed out back there at the ledge…though the pot idea has merit…I must be stoned…”

  “Shh…you’re not crazy…Catherine…” he whispered, his voice now originating from a few feet to my left. He said my name, and I melted. I peeked out from under my ravaged palms to see him sitting quietly against a tree, now on the same side of the path as me. I hadn’t heard his footfalls. I should have heard his footfalls. I shouldn’t be hearing any of this…

  He contemplated me with a deep sadness. A scrape slashed across his rugged jaw, and his forehead was smeared with dirt. My eyes took all of this in, but finally took refuge on the familiar sword tattoo on his arm. I had only seen the tip of it on the bus that first day of school, but now the entire tattoo was visible. A pair of unfurled wings flanked the sword, and the words “Saint Michael” were inked across its hilt. It was intricate. It was beautiful.