“You had your time and wasted it, brother. This is my time. Right now. MY time. This is what feels right to me. And if I have to lay waste to this whole goddamned planet to make things right again, I will. You just go on and fuck off back where you came from.” Vincent waved a hand in Vic’s direction and with a fading scream, Vic vanished. Vincent, suddenly aware of what he had done, turned frightened, calling out, “Vic? Vic? Viiiiiiiicccccc… I’m sorry, brother.” He fell down to his knees, weeping. “I’m so sorry.”
After a short time had passed, he climbed back up into his big rig and got back on the road. He eyes were blurry from tears, but he wiped them with his sleeve and drove on. He didn’t care what Vic had to say on the matter. Probably was all just a hallucination anyway brought on by an overly exhausted mind. Had to make the next big city and find a truck stop to get some shut eye. He rolled along for another thirty miles and saw the sign. The sign telling him that nothing was all right and probably never would be again. He maintained his speed, but became cautiously panicked as the sign ahead of him read “Atlanta, 10 miles.” What the fuck was he doing in Atlanta? He should be nearly to the Rockies right now. All this time, he’d been heading east and south? No wonder nothing seemed right. He grew nauseous. He rolled along as the traffic began to pick up. More and more vehicles speeding by and around. People honking at him and cutting him off. Then, around the next big curve and over one large hill, there she sat. Atlanta. His most hated of all cities to drive to or through. So many hateful people, each one in a bigger hurry than the last, each one the most important person in the whole entire fucking world—at least in their own minds. Highway 285 went around the city in a gigantic loop and the people that drove it treated it like it was the Indy 500. He had a really bad feeling creeping up his spine. He definitely did not want to be in Atlanta. He saw an exit ramp coming up and got off. He again pulled over on the shoulder and parked the truck. He got out, stretching his legs and getting over to the passenger’s side of the truck.
He walked the last bit of distance up the ramp to the stop light and stood looking at the sprawling city before him. It was still a few miles off, but close enough to see how terrible it was. To be fair, most big cities made him feel just as queasy and pissed off, but Atlanta had a somehow worse effect on him than all the cities. He didn’t know why, it was just from past experiences. He kept trying to remember his route in his mind and where he might have gone wrong. How he ended up here. He honestly couldn’t do it. He left the yard, that guy in the car ran off the road in front of him, then he was west bound. Where had he gotten turned around? He was deep in this line of thinking when a beat to shit old Caddy came speeding up the off ramp. The next set of events happened in a sudden and quite organic way. The car blew past him and a partially full can of beer was launched out of the window. It exploded on the side of his head and knocked him on his ass. The car continued through the red light and back down the on ramp onto the interstate. He sat there shaking his head, rubbing the spot that was hit and now bleeding. He took his hand from his head and held it out in front of him. The line occurred to him “seeing red” and he would’ve laughed under other circumstances, but not these. He slowly got up to his feet and looked on at the city that had—at times—actually haunted his nightmares. He felt the anger rising. His father tried to speak up again about his temper, but he squashed the memory. He stood in the most angry, hate-filled posture, with both hands firmly clenched into fists at his side and watched as the tiny blip of the Caddy disappeared. He looked up at the sky and the grey storm clouds seemed to be amassing above him as he looked. Rain began pelting down on him as a great and grandiose streak of blinding lightning streaked across the sky, leaving behind a ghost trail of lightning that made him think of fourth of July sparklers as a kid. He closed his eyes, took a deep lungful of air and opened them, screaming out, “Fuck you, Atlanta!!” His fists shot up to the sky and the entire world went white.
The entire landscape before him went white, blinding white light that would impair his vision for the next thirty minutes. He could still see, but everything had a sun-spot type of glare in the center of it. He’d have to look sideways at things until it cleared up. He watched as the blinding light began to fade and what remained was an atomic mushroom cloud where Atlanta had just stood mere moments ago. Winds foul with poison and death rushed past him and all around, once more knocking him off of his feet. Debris of all sizes and types blew around on the wind like empty plastic bags. Sirens were going off from behind him, in the direction away from the city and cars and trucks on the freeway were screeching to a halt and many were crunching into one another. He stood watching all of this with a single tear of awe standing out in his bewildered eyes. The shock wave from the detonation went straight up and out in every direction and before long, a jumbo jet was falling in an erratic spiral from the sky toward the vacant lot formerly known as Atlanta. It gave a loud roaring groan as it fell into the aftermath and exploded with a deafening sound. More fire and debris and pandemonium from all directions. It finally broke his paralysis and he ran towards his truck. He went past it and ran for the nearest ditch, shielding his head from falling objects. The flaming wreckage of a city bus landed with a massive crunch less than forty yards from where he sought shelter. He saw the charred remains of its passengers through the empty sockets that once were windows. Smoke billowed out from the shell as it fell over lifeless.
People were now running up the off-ramp screaming. People were also running up the opposing on ramp, also screaming. One woman carrying a child was running hysterically when a large smoldering chunk of rubber airplane tire came down directly on top of them. Vincent winced and shut his eyes tight. Make it go away! Please make it all go away! he thought, becoming a bit hysterical himself. I’m sorry! I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Vic. I’m sorry. Please help me. Explosions continued rippling along from the distance and sirens continued wailing. People screaming and noises like a monster clearing its throat. Vincent held his hands tight to his ears and screamed at the terror that he had caused. He screamed and screamed, until he thought his head would explode like so many other things had. Then, an amazing thing happened. Right out there at the edge of his sanity, someone was there. The volume of that spectacular chaos began to decrease. He still held his hands to his ears, but before long found he no longer had to. The screams were fading away to whispers, the explosions became little more than soft poofs. A gentle, caring hand fell upon his shoulder. He thought at first it was the police or army, there to arrest him. He shut his eyes again and shouted, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Over and over again.
“I know, Vincent. It’s all right now. I’ve found you.” Vincent slowly opened his eyes. He looked up and saw only an arm attached to a sun glare. He turned his head a bit to the side and saw Vic standing over him. Just Vic. No corpse, no clown paint, no police, no army. Just Vic. Vic was helping him up to his feet and brushing dust and debris off of his clothes. Vincent looked at him through stunned and mournful eyes.
“I should’ve listened,” Vincent sobbed. “I’ve done such a bad thing here. Oh my god, I have killed so many people, Vic. What am I gonna do?” His brother hugged him for a moment and held him tight, then pushed him gently to arm’s length and said:
“A power like this can belong to no man, nor woman. You see that now, right? There are always going to be bad people out there. Always have been, always will be. It’s just a fact of life. The real trick is to not let it infect you, the real power is to not become bad yourself. Always look out for the little guy, always try to see things from other’s perspectives. ‘See a need, fill a need,’ as some cartoon or other once said. That is what life is all about. That is the answer to ‘why are we here?’ We’re supposed to love each other and help each other and forgive each other and be forgiven ourselves. We all fuck up, bro. We all need help along the path.” Vincent smiled at Vic, but then frowned again looking around at the devastation.
“But, Vic, I can’t be forg
iven for all of this. I am a monster. I let my temper get the best of me and I killed so many people.” Vic looked down with a small silly grin beginning to form on his face.
“Well, yeah, you did. You really did. And it was spectacular work. An atomic blast! Wow! I mean really…but fortunately for you, you have a god for a twin brother.” They exchanged glances, Vincent’s puzzled and Victor’s more playful, as Vic snapped his fingers and in 1/10th of a heartbeat, everything was back to normal. Just like it had been. Just like that. Vincent’s legs went rubbery and he fell to his knees looking at the city.
“How…?” was all he could manage as his mouth fell open. Vic sat down beside him. They sat looking at the beautiful city together, cars and trucks whizzing by on the interstate.
“Well, you’re my brother and I love you like no other…” This had been a thing they used to say when they were kids. “But this is going to be as hard for me to say as it is for you to hear.” Vincent swallowed dryly and whispered:
“Say it, Vic. I need to hear the words.” Vic thought a moment, then said slowly and deliberately:
“You are in a coma. As we speak, you are in a hospital where you have been in a non-responsive vegetative state for a little over six years now. Every time you used your powers, you weakened your physical state a little more. You were nearly gone before this little show you put on here today. I think this is the final curtain call, man. I managed to get through to you—with a little help from my friends—to take you home with me. See all that?” He gestured vaguely to the Atlanta metropolitan area and surrounding countryside. “None of that is really there. It’s all up here.” He used his finger to lightly tap Vincent’s temple. “These same friends helped me through when it was my time and now they helped me to do the same for you. And now, I think it’s time to go.” They both stood up. Vincent gestured over to his truck.
“What about that? Just gonna leave it parked there?” Vic smiled.
“Oh yeah, I nearly forgot.” He walked over to the truck, pulled the valve stem out of the tire and the truck began to deflate and fly around their heads like a balloon not properly tied. It landed at Vincent’s feet. He reached down and picked up the small rubbery form of the deflated truck, now child-sized. He tossed it nonchalantly over his shoulder. Vincent paused then and looked down at his left hand. The pinky finger was there. He held up his hand and wiggled all five fingers, smiling. Vic looked curiously at him and Vincent said:
“Look at that. All present and accounted for.” The brothers walked, arms around each other’s shoulders, toward the sunset. They were laughing like the children they once were. As the last brilliant colors of that beautiful sunset began to light up the horizon, they became silhouettes, then shimmering ghosts, then gone. Atlanta had never seen a more picturesque and perfect sunset.
****
11
“Clawfoot Tub (A Love Story)”
“OK, you guys, who wants to go first?” The twelve men sat around the lounge area of the ski resort they had rented exclusively for the weekend. The twelve men were friends from long ago, all the way back to their days at Pitt. They had all met relatively close to the same time and quickly found they had similar passions and expectations from life. They did a great many things together; their courses and classes, undergraduate studies, residencies, the works. Coming from mostly very well-to-do families, it was easy street to manipulate these things to their liking. They had all remained very close throughout the years and a few years ago had begun their now-annual weekend in Aspen. The powder was bitchin’ this time of year. They all skied like they were trying out for the Olympic team and, together, each had been there for support and strength in nearly every facet of every other member’s life. They were a club now, of sorts, and once a year they got together here in the Colorado wilderness to shock and awe each other with stories of their clients and their lives. Under normal circumstances, the sharing of confidential patient information was verboten under the HIPAA privacy laws, but with the other guys, it was just shootin’ the shit. There were, after all, only staff members here at the resort. No other paying guests or anyone else, for that matter. They mostly had the joint to themselves. This was their time of the year to let their hair hang down and be normal, gross dudes. Like back in their early college or even high school days. They could drink and smoke a little rope, fart and tell fat momma jokes, have pissing contests out in the snow. It was their own little private vacation paradise and they always had a blast. They all sat in their various seats sipping cognac, their special annual drink, and not speaking. “So,” Dr. Vance Abbott said, disturbing the silence. “Who’s it going to be first? Logan? Come on, surely you have a good tale.” The man in his mid-thirties sipped thoughtfully at his drink and then, setting it aside, cleared his throat.
“Well,” he began, with just a subtle trace of southern. “It was nothing really special, but if I had to put a blue ribbon on any one patient this year, it would have to this young lady who came to see me about four months ago.” He paused a moment and belched a great and drawn out belch.
“Ha-ha, elegant as always, sir!” Piped up a slightly inebriated Dr. Xavier Jane. “Do continue, Mr. Lothario,” he said with a sideways grin.
“Thank you so much,” Dr. Logan Kemp said sarcastically. “Do keep in mind, sir, your own goings on with the fairer sex, if you don’t mind.” The twelve men all had a good laugh at this. He continued. “So, this young lady came into my office and we began to go over her tedious day to day routine and her alleged depression for which she was in to see me. It quickly came out in about the third session that she had been having me on the entire time. She was actually a prostitute from the middle of Arkansas, somewhere no one’s ever heard of, who made her meager living shucking and jiving her way from truck stop to truck stop. She claimed to have met a man who would not give her a ride from the truck stop she was currently working, but later on down the road, they met up again. Literally on the road. She was hitchhiking, you see? He, being the gentlemanly sort, stopped to play chivalrous knight to the poor damsel in distress and gave her a lift.” A snort of disapproval came from his left. “Do you have something to interject, Mr. York?”
Dr. Thaddeus York looked mischievously down at his drink and said, “Oh, Logan, you are being such a bore tonight. Do get to the goo
d part if you don’t mind.” He then returned to his intaking of said drink.
“Yes, quite,” Dr. Kemp retorted. “Anyway, this sad young girl claims to have taken his life with various other young ladies of the trade at a deserted truck stop in…where was it? Iowa? Nebraska? Oh, I do forget. So, I asked her if she meant that they murdered him and stole the poor man’s valuables. That sort of thing. She claimed that they seduced him and, through some unknowable power that she holds inside herself and likewise with the other ladies involved, the gaggle of ghoulish gals fucked him clean to death.” One of the others was in mid drink, but found himself spitting the drink back out into the glass.
“Fucked him to death?” Dr. Geoffrey Potter exclaimed. Logan Kemp nodded slowly, but wisely. Dr. Alexander Dunn, a heavy-set man with thick brown facial hair that was a little invasive at first meeting, asked:
“And you say this girl was from Arkansas?”
“Well, that is the story this young girl gave me. As you know, my practice is in Memphis so I guess it’s not too far of a stretch to think she might’ve been telling the truth. But, the really bizarre part is that this young girl believes herself to be part of a cult or tribe of lizard women who prey on truck drivers. She came to visit me a total 5 times in all. I did not get the lizard tribe story until the final visit. She gave me a name of one of the truckers, a Hank Petersen. I did a fair amount of research on this name and found some cryptic results. A man from Gum Springs, Arkansas with just that name and who was, in fact, an over the road truck driver did go missing along the same time lines as the ones she gave me. Further research turned up his abandoned truck on a gravel parking lot at an abandoned truck stop in
Iowa…or Nebraska…or someplace like that. I forget the location, but it was his truck. So, either my mysterious young clientess was running a con after a spot of detailed research, or…who knows? The only thing I know for sure is that I never saw her again. And that’s my blue-ribbon winner for this year,” he concluded, reaching for his cognac.
“My greatest client this year was all about the bad dream predictions,” began Dr. Samuel Bennett. “A nightmare prediction of meteorites falling to Earth and disrupting the natural flow of reality and that sort of thing. He was quite hysterical over the entire thing. Swore there was to be an event that would drive the human-kind mad to the point of extinction if not resolved. Quite mad, I assure you all.” Dr. Abbott spoke up.
“I say, that is a good one. Quite hysterical, you say?” Dr. Bennett nodded in confirmation. “How did you sort him out? Or is he well on his way to a padded room vacation?”
“No, no. I say, I got him sorted out, simply enough, through modern hypnosis. He was a marvelous subject, willing and open to the entire experience. I dare say it changed his life. He and his wife both. Her, so as not to re-enable suppressed memories. Claimed to have touched a meteorite when he was 6. Rubbish is what. But, they both fell fast asleep under hypnosis and the bad little memories are all gone now. No worries at all.” He smiled, a bit unassured, as he swirled his cognac in the crystal glass.
“Might as well tell mine then,” Dr Abbott continued. “A young African-American gentleman named Rudy. He lives in a very poor, very violent neighborhood in Denver’s ghetto area called Highlands Ranch. A very concentrated amount of drugs, prostitution, and crime. This lad claims that a man-beast stalks the midnight streets, attacking and devouring the criminal element. Upon having done some research myself, I learned that it was true that a fair number of miscreant types had turned up horribly mangled and savaged. Pieces missing, that sort of thing. No report was ever given on a man-beast, but there was definitely something on the prowl there. The youth has been back to see me a number of times. Vivid nightmares recalling his alleged meeting with the man-beast, in which two”street thugs,” as he called them, were savaged right before his own eyes. Terrible, terrible world we live in.” He paused to sip lightly at his drink and then began stoking a pipe. He used a very expensive looking lighter to set the tobacco aflame and a plume of the sweetest berry and vanilla scented smoke came to them all. “I believe it is now someone else’s turn. My story has reached its climax, I fear.” He puffed thoughtfully on his pipe while he held the glass of cognac in his right hand.
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