Vanishing Point: The Ravine

Chapter 1

John’s Tale

Part I: The Ravine

I made John’s acquaintance, of all times, during a hiking trip with my wife.  Oh, by the way, John isn’t his real name; at least, I doubt it is, based on the way he smiled when he said it.  It was a kind smile, but also the smile of someone who just thought of a good joke.

Anyways, my wife and I were hiking along one of the usual trails in the Franklin Mountains, when she slipped and fell down a ravine.  I don’t know whether she or I were more scared when she finally hit the bottom, about twenty feet down, but it was probably about even.  I raced down as quickly as I could while maintaining some kind of semblance of balance, listening to her moaning at the bottom.  When I got down there, past all the scree and brush, she lay at the bottom of the ravine, one leg twisted awkwardly behind her and a large gash crossed her other leg.  Blood was gushing out of it fiercely, in bright, angry red streams.  She must’ve sliced it on a rock on the way down, and she sliced it good – the way it was pulsing out of her it was obvious she’d ripped open her femoral artery.

In a moment, I had my belt off and was wrapping it around her bleeding leg as a tourniquet, while she screamed in pain every time I jostled her.  I tried to calm her as best as I could, but it had little effect.  Besides, I was pretty damned nervous about the situation, so my attempts were half-hearted.  How was I going to get her out of the ravine by myself?  I couldn’t keep the tourniquet on her for too long, or she’d lose her leg, but if I took it off, she’d bleed out.  I had to get medical help out here, people who knew what they were doing.  I checked my cell phone, knowing exactly what I’d find: there never was any reception when you actually needed it, and sure enough, a big ugly “No Service” was flashing across my screen.

I heard a rustling above us, and saw some gravel falling from the side of the ravine.  I looked up and saw an older man – or, at least, he looked older, but it was difficult to tell with any kind of certainty.  All I could see was that he had long gray hair, with a gray beard to match.  He was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, almost like a cowboy, and the way he carried himself made him seem much closer to twenty than eighty.  Within a second, or at least much quicker than it took me, he was standing on the bottom of the ravine next to us.

“How bad’s she hurt?” he asked, his voice quiet but strong.

“Bad.  Sliced one leg and broke the other.  And that’s all I can see – I don’t know if there’s anything else wrong with her.”

“Ma’am?” he called to my wife.  “Ma’am, does it feel like anything’s broken inside?”  She started to shake her head, then moaned. 

“No,” she panted.  “Just my leg.  I think.”

“We need to get her out of here,” the man said.  I bit back a sarcastic remark; he was trying to help, and it would’ve been pointless to be mean, regardless of how bad the situation was frying my nerves.

“Can we carry her?” I asked, feeling like he probably had a better sense of what to do than I did.

“Your little phone working?”  I shook my head.  “Then we don’t have much of a choice.”

“Well, one of us could go to the road; it’s only a couple of miles away.”

He glared at me, then shook his head.

“You’re not supposed to be here.  Didn’t you see the signs the military has posted all around?”

“The unexploded munitions?  Of course.  Didn’t think anything of them.”

“Yeah, no one does.  We need to get both of you out of here.  ‘Specially with her bleeding like that.  They’ll be all over us in about ten minutes here.”

“Who?” I asked.  He didn’t answer, just leaned down and spoke to my wife.

“Okay ma’am, We’re going to try and pick you up real nice and easy like.  You help as much as you can, but don’t force it, okay?”

“Okay,” my wife whispered.  The man signaled me to come over with his head, and reached for my wife’s arm.  I took the other arm and we picked her up, as gently as we could.

“We’re going this way,” the man said, nodding down the ravine in the direction of the road.  “We won’t be able to get her back up to the top, and this will get us on asphalt a lot quicker.”  I didn’t see any point in arguing with him, so I just started walking, as gently but as quickly as possible, keeping up with the man so as not to move my wife around too much. 

“Who might be after us?” I asked after a couple of minutes of fighting rocky terrain and mesquite bushes.  He looked at me and shook his head.

“No one, no one.”  I could tell he was lying, but I didn’t see the point in pushing the subject.  We needed all our breath to walk as fast as possible; we didn’t need to waste it arguing.

Shortly after that, I heard a sharp cry in the distant – a hawk, by the sound of it.  Our new friend didn’t think so though; he looked around briefly, then started walking even faster.

“Hurry,” he said, hardly panting.  “They found where she fell.  We need to hurry.”

“Who found it?” I demanded, but he still kept quiet on the subject.  I thought about stopping and forcing him to answer some questions, but even if no one was following us, the fact remained that my wife needed medical attention, so we needed to hurry.  And if something was following us, why give it any extra chance to catch up?

We made it to the road, and our companion visibly relaxed.  “Much better now,” he said.  “Sorry I didn’t explain back there, but we needed to get out of there.  Which direction’s your car?”

“That way,” I said, pointing up the road.  I could see it from where we were; it was only about half a mile away.  Thank God for small favors.  “So,” I pushed on, “what exactly was following us?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said.

“Try me.”

He laughed.  “Let’s just say it wasn’t anything good, that’s for sure.  They smelled your wife’s blood, and they came running.  I’d seen them earlier in the day, sleeping under a bunch of boulders.  That’s how I knew it’d take them about ten minutes – there’s only one thing that’ll wake them up during the day, and that’s fresh blood.  Night time’s a whole different story…”  His voice trailed off, and I could tell he was remembering something he would’ve rather forgotten.

“Why are we safe here?  I’m sure whatever it is can walk on asphalt, right?”

“Oh yeah, they could.  But the military’s better at keeping them in than keeping you out.” 

We were at the car now, and I could tell my wife was starting to drift in and out.  I fished my keys out of my pocket and handed them to him.

“Can you drive?  I want to stay in the back seat and keep an eye on her.”

“Sure,” he said.  Thinking about it now, the cell phone probably had signal by that time, but I wasn’t thinking quite straight – my wife was injured, strange things had been chasing us, and we’d just met someone who seemed to know something that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.  He helped me get my wife stretched out across the back seat, and I crawled in to sit with her head on my lap.  The man climbed in the front seat.

“By the way,” I said.  “What’s your name?”  He leaned back and smiled, that strange, good humored but slightly “off” smile.

“John,” he said.  For the first time, I got a good look at his eyes, too.  They were a strange, silver-gray color, almost metallic.  I wanted to shudder, but there was something oddly calming about him, something soothing.  Not grandfatherly, not at all, but looking in his eyes I felt comforted somehow.  He turned back, and I looked out the window as he drove off.

Perhaps it was just my imagination, riled up by nerves and what John had alluded to – strange creatures (or people, maybe?) drawn to blood that slept all day – but I swear I saw a large, almost reptilian tail slither into the bushes as we pulled onto the road.

The Professor

Hector pulled the gun on the professor, and you could tell by the look in his eyes he finally believed we were serious.  He held his hands up fast and his face went pale.  It was obvious that this was a rare occurrence at the UTEP campus.

“I really don’t know anything at all about the project,” he said, his voice shaky.

“Bullshit,” Hector said.  He nodded at me, and I pulled my gun out and pointed it at the doctor.  Hector set his backpack on the ground and rummaged in it for a moment.

“Dr. Vargas, right?” Hector asked.  “Dr. Emmanual Vargas, Ph. D from Stanford in molecular biology.  Right?”

“I … I … I … yes.  Yes, I am, but …”  Hector threw a stack of papers at the man’s feet.

“These have your name all over them.   We found them in your little ‘lab’ in the mountains.  About five kilometers north-north-west of Transmountain Rd., about seven and a half kilometers due west of U.S. Route 54.”  Dr. Vargas’ expression slowly went from fear to anger.

“That is military land.  I don’t know who you are, but you had no business there.”

Hector chuckled.

“I’m standing here pointing a gun at you, and you think I’m going to worry about some Army brat MP telling me I’m trespassing?”  Dr. Vargas said nothing, but his expression was still quite indignant.

“Leo, take this,” Hector said, handing me a couple of papers from the backpack.  I didn’t pay any attention to what he tossed me; I was just a hired gun here, and the less I remembered, the better it’d be for me after everything was done.  I glanced over — Hector’s backpack was empty now, the papers either in my hand or at the doctor’s feet.

Hector glanced at me briefly; I was only allowed as much information as needed to get the job done, and apparently what he was about to say wasn’t part of that.  Anything I might learn during the course of the mission, the company was fine with.  Hector just wasn’t allowed to go out of his way to break the silence.  We were each fitted with mics and video equipment, so the debriefing team would know all about any slip ups.  That’s the problem with being understaffed.  Damned economy…

“Dr. Vargas,” Hector said, “we believe your presence at that installation is in violation of certain … treaties.  Or ‘contracts’ if you prefer.  I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about.”  Dr. Vargas nodded slightly, showing that he did.  “Good,” Hector continued.  “Then you understand our presence here.”

“You don’t understand,” the doctor interuppted.  “We’re on the edge of something phenomenal.  Something that will bring humanity leaps and bounds ahead of where we’re at now.  My research has only just barely scratched the surface.”

Hector looked at the doctor for a moment, considering him.

“You think so?” he asked, his voice sounding honestly curious.

“Yes!  Yes!”  The doctor’s enthusiasm was only barely contained, and I sat and watched with a curiosity of my own.  “Just the other day,” the doctor continued, his voice sounding on the brink of ecstasy, “one of our experiments neared criticality, and our containment field was holding!”  Okay, I admit it, I was lost, but Hector looked intrigued.

“You don’t say, huh?” he said, egging the doctor on.

“It’s true!  And just this morning, we were able to send a test subject both ways.”  The gleam in his eyes meant this was something impressive; even Hector seemed a little shocked by it.

“Really?” he asked, his eyes looking interested for the first time.

“Yes!  Really.  They returned safely, with only minor genetic variations.”

“Hmmmm….”  Hector rubbed his chin.  I stifled a yawn; the moment’s excitement was gone, and I just wanted the mission to be over.  The doctor started to lower his hands.

“Please, let me continue my research; we are so close!”

Hector glanced at me, then nodded at the doctor.

“Okay, I’ll see what we can work out.”

The doctor relaxed visibly, almost collapsing in on himself.  “Oh, thank you, please, you won’t regret this.”

“Oh, by the way,” Hector said.  The doctor looked up at him with a bit of hopeful curiosity.  Without further warning, Hector shot the doctor twice, once in the chest and again in the forehead.  The shots were fired so rapidly and accurately that I couldn’t believe it was from a single person shooting essentially from the hip.

The doctor slumped to the floor, blood and bits of gore splattered against the back wall.  Hector walked over to the doctor and picked up the pieces of paper he’d thrown at the man’s feet earlier.  I barely heard him whisper, “I can’t stand liars,” to the corpse, before he stood up and smiled at me.

“Okay, that’s done,” he said, his voice cheerful.  “I’ll clean up this mess,” he said, indicating the room with his arms.  “You take these papers back to headquarters.  Along with these.”  He pulled open a drawer and started putting stacks of files into the backpack.  I didn’t ask questions of course, though I wondered what was in the papers.  Of course, I wondered a lot on this mission, not the least of which was whether I’d live to get my paycheck or not.  “I’ll catch up with you later,” he said, and that was the last I ever saw Hector.

The next day, after debriefing, I read in the paper about the blaze that destroyed half of one of the buildings at UTEP — I forget what they called it, but I knew it wasn’t the one we’d been in.  That would’ve been too obvious.  Nobody was injured, no remains were found.  Which meant Hector probably took the body out into the acres of desert, and the fire was used to destroy paperwork the company didn’t want anyone to know about.

I got my check though, signed, sealed, and delivered.  Didn’t recognize the name on it, nor the name of the company — certainly wasn’t the one I contracted to — but it didn’t bounce, and, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.  Right?

The Baby

My wife screamed, though in pain or fright I couldn’t tell.  It didn’t matter a whole lot anyways — I was trying to get her to the hospital as quickly as I could, and I’d just cut across three lanes of traffic to make the exit.  Horns blared behind me, and I knew it was stupid, but I had to hurry.  Her contractions were really close together now, to the point where she almost couldn’t talk to me.  That was the main reason I’d even taken the chance of crossing traffic like that, because I knew she couldn’t really say anything about it.  She tried though.

“You stupid son of a — oooohhhh!”  Another contraction ripped through her, and I patted her leg.

“We’re almost there, sweetheart, don’t worry.  Almost there.”

“Shut it,” she said, gritting her teeth.  She sounded like she was going to say something else, but I interrupted her with the horn, trying to warn off some of the upcoming traffic.  It didn’t work, so I pulled around them and cut across two lanes again to make my turn.  More horns blared, but we were only a couple of blocks from the hospital.  Even if we got into an accident now, at least medical attention was just seconds away.

I screeched into the emergency drop off, scattering some pigeons, turned off the ignition, and jumped out of the car before the engine had completely died.  I could hear my wife cursing loudly through the windshield, and was thankful it’d be over soon — she was normally such a sweetheart that it was almost embarrasing to hear her swear like a sailor.  A nurse came out as I was opening the door for her.

“She’s in labor.  We need a wheel chair,” I said, trying to sound calm.  The nurse nodded and ran back inside as I helped my wife out of the car.  She grabbed on to my shoulder with superhuman strength, and hissed in my ear.

“I am going to kill you for doing this to me,” she said.  I wanted to laugh, and probably would have if my eyes weren’t tearing up from her steel grip on my shoulder.  I silently thanked God she’d recently taken up chewing her nails, or else I’d probably be getting stitches while we were here.

The nurse came back and we helped my wife into the wheelchair, comforting her as much as two men possibly could.  Once inside, two more nurses helped her up again, then onto a gurney.  A doctor came over and examined her briefly, then motioned one of the nurses to take her back deeper into the hospital.  I started to follow, and the doctor held me off.

“We need to make sure she’s stable, first, then we’ll come out and get you,” he said.  I nodded, then started pacing.

I don’t know how long it was before they came and got me, but it felt like forever.  By that time, I was a nervous wreck, countless scenarios playing through my mind.  None of them were close to what was going to happen though, and in some ways, even the worst I’d imagined would’ve been a little better.

After cleaning up and putting on some blue cover-alls, they led me back to where my wife was delivering our child.  I could hear her cursing and yelling long before I got there, and when I entered, her volume rivaled an operatic singer.

I took her hand, and she crushed my knuckles as she pushed.  I tried telling her to breath (because I couldn’t think of anything else to say), but no words would come out.  In fact, I was finding it difficult to remember to breath myself.

“The baby’s coming!” the doctor said, waving at me to come over.  I walked to him, thankful that my wife let go of my hand; it would take some time before I had enough feeling in it to see if she’d broken anything, but it certainly felt like a possibility.  “Push!  Just a couple more pushes and it’ll be out,” the doctor egged my wife on.

“I am pushing you assss—aaahhhh!”  I heard the moan in her voice take on a different tone, one of relief, and I knew the baby was out.  I hurried the short distance to the doctor to see my new child — we didn’t even know if it was going to be a girl or a boy, because the ultrasounds never seemed to come out just right.  I looked back at my wife, and she was laying there with her eyes closed, trying to catch her breath.

The room was suddenly quiet, much more quiet than I’d expected it to be.  I looked at the doctor, and over his mask, I could see his eyes looking at me in confusion.  He shook his head softly, and I could tell it wasn’t good news.

“Let me see, please,” I asked him, my voice muffled by my own mask and by the fear that was welling up inside.  It couldn’t be…  We’d been waiting for this for years, for her to finally get pregnant, and we’d been so ecstatic when we finally found out.  Now…

I could tell he wasn’t very willing to hand the baby over, but I held my ground and reached my arms out.  I took the limp infant in  my hands and pulled it close to my body, rocking it gently.  It was most definitely dead, I could tell that just by the weight and feel of it.  I choked back a sob; I couldn’t let my wife hear me cry.

It’s head rolled back in my arms, and I almost dropped it for fright.  It’s eyes opened as it’s head moved, and I saw two dimly glowing, red orbs glowing back at me, with elongated pupils like cat’s eyes.  The eyes closed again, and before my curiousity got the better of me and I opened them again myself, the baby moved.

It cried like every baby I’d seen born in a movie, wailing fiercely and struggling in my arms.  It looked at me again, and this time, there was no glow, and it’s eyes seemed perfectly normal, blue like it’s mother’s.  It’s, I thought to myself, and did a quick check; his eyes.  It was a boy.  And, in the relief of hearing my son cry, I forgot about the glowing eyes and I smiled.  The eyes were probably just my own imagination, from emotions run ragged with my wife’s labor and thinking that he’d been stillborn.

I carried him over to his mother, who was waiting with outstretched arms.  She smiled as she took him, such a beautiful smile that I completely forgot any remaining fears I had.  I knew in that moment what happiness really was, seeing the mother of my child, holding him closely to her chest and smiling down at him as he fell silent and started to sleep.

The Thing in the Backyard

After I got home that night, I hear the scratching at the back door that meant Chip wanted to come in.  He wasn’t really an outside or an inside dog, kind of a mix.  I kept him outside while I worked, and (most of the time, at least) let him back in at night when I got home.

He was a good dog, a mutt a little smaller than a golden retriever, and probably deserved to be let in more often.  Most of the time it was nice enough outside to where it wasn’t that big of a deal though.

Anyways, I let him in and went about my business — dishes needed to be washed, I think I even put a load of laundry in.  It wasn’t long before Chip needed to go back outside to do his own business, so I let him out.  It was awfully warm for December, probably about fifty degrees even at night — not terribly unusual for early in an El Paso winter.  I thought about just leaving him out for the night, and figured I’d decide later.

After I let Chip back out, I sat down and turned on Jay Leno.  It was about halfway through his monologue when I started it, and it was during the commercial break before he went to his desk that I heard a dull thud  from the back of the house.

Of course, like an idiot, I had to investigate.  I’d never understood why people in movies always had to go see what that strange sound they’d heard was, the sound that normally meant a killer was in the house with a machete or something.  Well, that night, those movies were the farthest thing from my mind, or else I probably wouldn’t have gone.  No, that’s a lie.  I’d have gone anyways, I just probably would’ve taken a knife or something with me.

I opened the back door, and at first I didn’t see anything at all.  Then some movement caught my eye — only briefly, before whatever it was moved deeper into the shadows.  I stepped outside — again, displaying a higher level of stupidty than I’d like to admit — and that’s when I saw poor Chip’s head laying on the back porch.  I stood there in shock for a moment; that’s what I figured made the sound I’d heard, given the splatter of blood on the wall.

I looked back to where I’d seen … well, whatever it was, and saw two gleaming eyes in the darkness.  I couldn’t make anything else out though, just the eyes.  They were lit like a cat’s eyes in headlights, but I couldn’t see any light that would be reflecting off of them.  They stared at me for a moment, then started to move towards me, into the light.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything I’d seen before.  It looked mostly human, or perhaps like some kind of ape or something.  It’s skin was a dull gray, and it’s face was smeared with blood.  It looked like it was chewing something, and I could only guess what it was (as much as I hated to).  It moved hunched over, which probably was what gave me the impression it was an ape of some kind.  It seemed bald, and had teeth that protruded over it’s bottom lip, like fangs almost, sharp and glistening red.

It takes a lot of time to explain this, but the thing was only there for a moment.  It moved as fast as lightning, and jumped over the fence into the neighbor’s yard before I could even try and get back inside.

Once it left, I stood there, still in shock, looking at Chip’s head.  His tongue lolled out on the porch, and he had what almost looked like a grin on his face.  I knelt down and rubbed the top of his head, getting some of his blood on my hand in the process, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t know what to do.  What if that thing came back?  Should I call the cops?  They wouldn’t believe me.  I thought about doing it anyways — maybe they’d at least keep an eye out in spite of how crazy it would sound — and decided not to.  No one else in this town would’ve cared enough to call them, why should I make myself look crazy?  They’d probably think I was the one who killed Chip, and just lock me up.

I thought about burying Chip right then, but decided it’d be best to wait until morning, so I could see what I was doing a little better.  I kissed Chip’s head one last time, and went to bed, though I did have the sense to lock the door and take a knife with me, just in case.

The next day, I called in sick to work.  I wanted to bury Chip, and I didn’t think I’d be able to focus on the job anyways.  When I went out to the backyard though, Chip’s body and head was no where to be found.  The blood was still on the wall — obviously I didn’t dream about it.  But, apparently, whatever had killed him decided to come back and finish the job.

Furious, I punched the wall, sending a sharp pain up my arm.  Why couldn’t that thing have just left it’s kill alone?  It just had to come back, and finish dinner.  I walked back inside to get some paper towels — at least I could clean the wall off — and noticed an envelope sitting on my kitchen table.  Curious, and more than a little angry (not to mention scared) that someone had been in my house, I opened it.

Inside was a note, and a large wad of cash.  I set the cash off to the side, staring at it — it looked like large bills, and lots of them.  The note was short, and either typed or printed on a computer: “We apologize for your loss; a subject of ours got out of control.  Please accept this as a token of our regret.  Tell no one of the dog or of this gift.”

I counted out the money; there was about twice as much as I made in a month.  It wasn’t going to bring Chip back, but it took the edge off of it a little.  Not much, as I could still hear a phantom scratching at the back door, the ghost of Chip wanting to be let in.

The Cop

It had been a weird night even before we stopped that guy.  Damn, I wish we wouldn’t have; Diego would still be alive and I wouldn’t have had to face his wife.  I could almost hear her heart break when I told her Diego wouldn’t be coming home anymore.  I know I could’ve gotten away with pawning it off on someone else, but that didn’t seem right.  Besides, I’m the one who saw what the guy did to him, so if she had any questions…

No, that’s crap.  I wouldn’t have been able to explain it better than anyone else, even though I was there.  It still doesn’t make sense to me; the guy wasn’t armed or anything.  Don’t know how he … did what ever it was that he did.  I still can’t explain it.  And I still don’t even really know exactly what happened, just … wow.

We responded to the first call of our shift, some heroin junkie wigging out because he found a dead body.  We didn’t think anything of it; we knew who the caller was, even though it was anonymous; there’s only one needle freak downtown who thinks he’s on our good side and would call us for anything.

Apparently some homeless guy met up with a bad night.  That’s the story that came out over the radio, at least.  Diego and I just looked at each other when we heard it break through the static, and he just shook his head.  Didn’t say a word, just shook his head.  I knew what he was thinking; some new poor sap bit it, and we’d have to track down (if we could) whatever family he had and break the news if we could find them.

Luckily, we weren’t the first ones on the scene.  In fact, they had everything pretty well sown up by the time we got there.  Even had the guy in a body bag, and they were loading him up.  I saw one officer coming back from the alley, looking white as a ghost.  I started to flag him down, but he shook his head and ran back to the alley.  I recognized him in that brief second though; he was a rookie, only on the force for a couple of weeks.  I smiled.  I’d been the same way the first few times I saw a body.

Diego was talking with one of the other officers on the scene, so I figured I’d go over and talk to the paramedic who was loading up the body in an ambulance for a ride to the morgue.  He didn’t look like he was doing so hot either, but I’d seen him on more than a few accident scenes.  He definitely wasn’t a rookie.

“That bad?” I asked, a little surprised by how sick he looked.  He nodded at me.

“Worst I think I’ve ever seen.  You want to take a look?  Maybe it’ll make some kind of sense to you.”

“Sure, couldn’t hurt,” I said.  Kinda regret it now.

But, I said it, and he unzipped the bag.  It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at, but when it did I felt my own dinner start to rise up in my throat.  There was a gaping hole where the poor schmuck’s face should’ve been, and it continued on all the way down to the guy’s chest.  Maybe further, but that’s all I could see.

And I do mean a hole.  Nothing there.  No brain, throat, lungs, heart.  Nothing.  If I wanted to, I could’ve reached to the guy’s backbone without getting my hands dirty.

It was clean, too.  The edges weren’t ragged, like they’d be if someone had used a regular knife (not that I can think of a knife that would do that).  The edges were smooth, the bone almost polished.  There wasn’t much blood, either; it looked like something done in an operating room, where they cauterize any bleeders they find.  Only difference, was doctors don’t do as clean a job as this – there’s still some raw edges and a hell of a lot more blood.

Besides, doctors don’t normally remove everything like that either.  Even in the morgue, they’d at least put them back.

I had to look away after a few minutes or else I’d be joining the rookie in the alley.  I waved at the paramedic to zip it up, and I heard him oblige as I walked back over to Diego.  We started walking back to our car.

“What happened?” I asked him when we got in.

“Pretty much what they said on the radio.  Our junkie found him on the bench, swore he didn’t know nothing about it.  They’re taking him down to the station for questions anyways.  What’d you see?”

“You don’t want to know,” I said, but I told him anyways.  He looked at me in disbelief for a moment, then shook his head.  He knew I wouldn’t bullshit him.  Not about that, at least.

“Wow,” he said.  What else could you say?  “Wow” summed it up pretty good.

We made our way back to I-10, and before we even got up to the speed limit, we saw this car, a late nineties BMW, flying down the freeway.  He was definitely over the limit; we didn’t need a radar gun to tell us that.  I turned on the lights, and sped up to catch up with him.  We were doing over eighty before we caught up to him, and he didn’t look like he was slowing down at all.  Suddenly, though, he pulled over to the side, stopped, and put on his hazards.  I shook my head at Diego.  Stupid kid, I thought.  Getting in trouble with his daddy’s car, more likely than not.  See a lot of that around here, so that’s what we were expecting.

Diego stepped out of the car, and I stayed inside, ready to come out if he needed a hand.  It looked normal at first; I could read his lips to know he was asking the usual questions:  Do you know how fast you were going?  Have you had anything to drink?  Run of the mill stuff.  He came back to the car with the man’s license and registration, and I took a look at it before he ran it.

That’s when a flag went off.  I’d heard earlier about a waitress that had gone missing, last seen with a guy who kinda matched the picture on the license.  It was a long shot, I knew that, but I figured we’d at least harass the guy for a bit and see what happened.  So, I told Diego what I was thinking, then stepped out.  Diego and I walked back to the guy’s car; I stood on the driver’s side, Diego across on the passenger’s side in case the guy did anything stupid.

“Sir, could you please step outside of the vehicle,” I said; it wasn’t a question.  He smiled at me – definitely a lady-killer smile if I’d ever seen one, and stepped out.

“What seems to be the problem officer?” he asked.  Before I could respond though, everything hit the fan.

It happened a lot quicker than you’d be able to believe by reading it, I know.  It was a blur, but it was the last I saw a living Diego standing around me, so it stuck with me pretty good.

The guy moved his hand; thinking about it now, I think he was just trying to straighten his tie or something like that, but I saw Diego flinch.  In a heartbeat, the guy spun, and stuck his hand out.  This is where it gets weird, and I hope you’ll take me at my word.  Lord knows I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it myself.

The guy’s hand started … glowing.  Or flashing.  Like it was a light bulb, or it was electrified or something like that.  Then there was a real bright flash, then something shot from his hand and hit Diego.  Diego’s head … it … it just exploded.  I think.  I don’t know; his head wasn’t there anymore.  I didn’t see little … ugh.  I didn’t see little bits flying, so I don’t know if it really did explode, but they never found it.

Of course, I drew my weapon and started firing at the guy.  Point blank, I shot at least five rounds right into him.

He turned at me and smiled, that lady-killer smile, and put his hands up.

“Officer,” he said, his voice as smooth and calming as silk.  “You can put that down.  I’ll come freely.”  He put his hands behind his back, and just on instinct I cuffed him.  I know – now, I know – they wouldn’t have done a damned bit of good if he wasn’t willing, but that’s the only thing that seemed logical at the moment.

I called into my radio that there was an officer down, suspect in custody, and the words sounded dead to my ears.  I still couldn’t believe that Diego was dead.  I looked up at the guy.

“What did you do?” I asked him, and I didn’t like the way my voice sounded but I couldn’t do anything about it.  He just laughed.

“Your friend wasn’t a very nice guy,” he said.  “He was going to try and attack me, unprovoked.  I merely defended myself.”

I wanted to defend Diego, but I couldn’t bring any more words to my throat.  I wouldn’t have gotten a chance anyways, as he continued speaking.

“I know you think I took that woman,” he said.  “I didn’t, though.  She came with me, willingly.”

“Where is she?” I asked.  Where was the damned ambulance?  Where was the backup?  I didn’t want to be with this guy alone anymore, in case he decided to give an encore performance.

“She’s … safe.  She’s out of your … jurisdiction now.  She’s safe,” he repeated.  I could hear sirens in the distance now though, and wished they’d hurry up.

Thankfully, he said nothing for the rest of the time I saw him.  The ambulance came, and I kinda lost it.  I don’t really remember too much, just arriving at the station, sitting in the car in the seat that was still warm from Diego sitting there all night, some officer I didn’t recognize (or didn’t take the time to recognize) driving me.

Of course, the night couldn’t just end there.  No, that would’ve been too easy.  Instead, of course the damned military wanted in on the action.  I heard the MP’s come in, talking to one of the officers out front, demanding to see the suspect we’d brought in.  I was back in the locker room, trying to block everything out, but it wasn’t working.

Eventually, for whatever reason, the MP’s got their way, and I heard them walking back to the holding cell.  That’s when everything hit the fan for the second time that night.

In between the time they brought him in and the time the MP’s came to see him, our suspect disappeared.   And I mean he disappeared.  I saw the footage from the cameras we have watching the holding area.

He’d been pacing for a few minutes, then looked at his watch.  He gave another of his lady-killer smiles – right at the camera, too.  Then he picked up his hands, still cuffed together, waved once at the camera, and disappeared.  Instantly, just gone.  No noise – we have a mic in the room, and it didn’t pick anything up.  No flash, or smoke or anything.  Even played it frame-by-frame.  One frame he’s there, the next, the handcuffs are floating in mid-air, and they’re on the ground in the next couple of frames.

I don’t know what bugs me the most, the fact that this guy killed Diego and got away with it, or the fact that he knew something about that waitress that disappeared, and got away before we could get anything else out of him.  I mean, it’s bad enough to tell Diego’s wife that her husband isn’t coming home, but what about that woman’s family?  They’re going to be wondering what’s going on until that guy gets tired of whatever game he’s playing.  And it looked like he quite enjoyed that game, too – I don’t think she’ll be coming home any time soon.

The Naming Ceremony

The Naming Ceremony

The arrival of a new puppy brings many rituals that the new pet owner must perform, but these are always done with love and a near-holy reverence.  There’s the ritual of the New Toy, where the owner purchases various plastic bones or stuffed animals that the puppy will chew on briefly and then ignore.  There’s the ritual of the New Bed, where the owner will purchase adorable bedding that the puppy will sniff occasionally before deciding the owner’s favorite chair to be the most comfortable spot in the house.  There’s the ritual of the New Food, the purchase of multitudes of bags of kibble in hopes that it will like one (and rarely does it choose any but the most expensive brand).

One ritual undertaken with each new pet – the most important one of all – is the Naming Ceremony.  This ceremony is the beginning of the bond between pet and owner, a bond cherished for the lifetime of both, and it must never be taken lightly.  With luck, the owner will instantly know the perfect name for the animal, a name found through instinct or divine intervention, a name that fits both of them like a well tailored glove.

If the Fates don’t directly hand the perfect name, it may come through intense planning and several hours spent scouring books and web sites of names.  The owner will sit at a desk or table with lists several pages long, crossing out names as they compare them to the new animal.  They’ll speak the names softly, with differing inflections and tones, trying each name until they find one that rolls off the tongue perfectly, the name created specifically for their animal.  With solemn adoration they ordain their new puppy, and life continues.

There is the Personal Naming Ceremony, and as any pet owner will tell you, it is a good thing.  The owner and the pet begin their bond together, and are destined for a happy life of drool and backyard landmines.

More often, however, the unfortunate owner becomes party to the Public Naming Ceremony.  This is an unplanned and dreadful event, forced upon the unwitting owner by friends and relatives who don’t have pets, and therefore fail to understand the importance of the animal’s name.

It starts innocently enough, a phone call, or perhaps a chance meeting in the supermarket.  “Hey, we just got a new puppy,” the owner states, beaming with pride, hope, and lack of sleep.  (This is part of another ritual, known as the Display, where the proud owner wishes to share their joy with all who are willing or unable to get away quickly enough.)

The invitee is excited, as baby animals are enthralling to those uninvolved in the animals training, the purchase of its necessities, and the disposal of its waste.

“Oh really? When can I come over and see it?” they ask with a vicious excitement.

This is where the horror of the Public Naming Ceremony begins.  The owner cheerfully tells the invitee that anytime would be great, bring the kids, we’ll have drinks, I’ll set out some finger sandwiches, and make a day of it.  Occasionally, the original invitee will invite others as well: mutual friends or coworkers, community religious figures, political appointees.  With a voraciousness that only arises with new found wealth or a new puppy, friends and family come out of the woodwork to join in the new owner’s delight.

At the time of the Display, the Ceremony will lurk in the shadows for an indefinite duration.  People will coo over the new puppy as it staggers around the rooms playfully.  They’ll force upon it toys that it’s already tired of.  They’ll try to get it to sit or roll over (because, as any pet owner will attest, all puppies are born with those commands genetically ingrained; it is obviously through a lack of pressure in these vital first days that it loses these abilities and must be re-taught).

Then it begins.

The Ceremony starts innocently enough, and always with variations of the exact same question: “So, what have you decided to name it?” The wise pet owner will smile graciously at their guests and proceed to end the Ceremony at this point, before it has truly begun.  It is possible to end the Ceremony politely, but social graces are immaterial when someone asks this question.  In extreme cases, murder is not entirely unwarranted; most judges with a full understanding of the situation will show some lenience.  However, most new pet owners, still in the daze of adoration and affection, make the mistake of responding to the question: “We haven’t come up with anything yet.”

From that point forward, the room is filled with a barrage of names, most offensively cute, some exceedingly pointless, and many quite cliché.  Names such as “Rover,” “Buttons,” “Baby Girl,” “Flower Patch,” and similarly disastrous choices are thrown carelessly in every direction.

The pet owner who already has one or two other pets, especially animals of the same species and breed, fares much worse.  It becomes a matching game, where the new animal’s name must coincide with or play off of the existing animal’s name; to do otherwise would be sacrilege.

Animals that are closely associated with a certain stereotype – an ethnicity, for example – often face the toughest hardships during the Ceremony: Chihuahuas are inevitably bombarded with poor attempts at Spanish; Pugs have vaguely oriental words and syllables thrown dangerously close to them.

The owner will watch in horror as the group finds the name the unknowing animal feels it wants.  This is a very noticeable event: the puppy, previously occupied with a shoe or other delicious article of clothing, jerks its head up at the sound of its new name and runs over to the vile fiend who had spouted the words.  This is irreversible; once the puppy finds the name it wants, it will never answer to anything else.  The owner is stuck calling it “Hotdog,” “Whippy,” “Mrs.  Flugelhorn,” or whatever foolish words were chosen.

It was not long ago that I found myself caught in this ritual, though I had sworn to avoid it at all costs.  I had promised – even before my wife and I decided our house needed a new puppy – that I would give any pet I would own the respect it deserved by avoiding the embarrassment and brutality of the Public Naming Ceremony.  After seeing the ritual performed on many others (and, I am afraid I must admit, taking part in it as well), I pledged to take it upon myself to find the perfect name for a new pet before it could know such horrors.

Soon after John, our son, moved away for college, my wife and I found the house quite empty.  Only months before, the noises of a teenager filled it at all hours – loud music, obnoxious but well meaning boys laughing, the sounds of his mother and me chiding him for keeping his room only marginally cleaner than the set of a disaster movie.  After he left, we found ourselves staring at each other in expectation, waiting for the sound of cars to pull up, brakes squealing and engines revving.

It did not take long for us to see that we needed something extra to fill the void, and we decided a new puppy would be a delightful addition.  We knew better than to merely go to any breeder at random, or to just walk into a pet store and take the first one we saw.  A dog is a special addition to the family, and we knew we needed to find one that would suit us perfectly.

We scoured the internet for many minutes looking for the right breed.  We needed something that was neither too big nor too small, eliminating many breeds immediately – the Great Dane, the Chihuahua, the Pug, the St.  Bernard.  All beautiful animals in their own rights, but we wanted neither an animal capable of towing small cars, nor one we might accidentally vacuum when we cleaned the house.

Soon we found the animal that suited us perfectly: the Beagle.  The web sites we visited assured us that the Beagle was an excellent hunter, quite playful, and a loyal pet to a good master.  The animal’s temperament was irrelevant though; my wife’s heart audibly broke when the first images of Beagle puppies came on the screen.  There was no need to search further: the Beagle was the breed for us.

A week later, an ad in the paper directed us to a local breeder with new puppies.  A small, whining box greeted us as we arrived.  We held each adorable pup in turn, my wife inspecting them carefully to determine how their coloring would match the carpeting and furniture.  My wife picked up the last one in the box, a mostly black and tan female with a strip of white down her nose, who stared at us with her big, pleading hound-dog eyes.  The mother Beagle came and went, and each of the puppies cried out for her except the one, who kept staring at us, wagging her tail when she noticed we were looking at her.  My wife saw this, and knew that we had been chosen (luckily by one who would complement our living room perfectly).  Moments later, we had written the owner a check and were driving home with our new puppy.

As I said, I had sworn to avoid the Public Naming Ceremony at all costs.  I reiterated this pledge to myself as we drove from the breeders, trying diligently to find a suitable name as soon as I could.  My wife, however, had made no such pledge, for (bless her heart!) she had never understood the embarrassment the Ceremony holds for both animal and owner.  To a mild degree, I hold myself accountable for not informing her.  I can, however, only take so much of the blame; she must be held responsible for some of her actions.  We had traveled less than a mile from the breeders before I heard her talking to her sister on her cell phone.

“It’s just the most adorable thing, Tracy! You and George just have to come see it! Today? Yes, that would be perfect.  No, I’m sure Jack wouldn’t mind, would you honey?” She glanced at me, but continued before I could say anything.  “No, Jack doesn’t mind.  Yes, of course! I’m sure the kids would love it.  No, if you think Pastor Williams would like to come, bring him along too.  Maybe I’ll put out snacks, you know, finger sandwiches or something.  We’ll just make a day out of it.  Okay, we’ll see you then Trace.  Buh-bye.”

My own, dear wife had betrayed me.  I knew there was relatively little time, nowhere near the days I’d expected to have to name the puppy at my leisure, and my mind raced.  It was no use though.  As we pulled into the driveway, I still had yet to find a suitable name for the beautiful little pup that sat peacefully in the lap of my traitorous wife.

To further aggravate my mood, my neighbor was standing in his yard, waving at us cheerfully.  By most other accounts, Richard Jameson was probably a great guy.  Probably a loving father, devoted husband.  Maybe even the kind of friend you could count on to change your tire at three in the morning.  I give him the benefit of the doubt in those instances.

Personally, I despise him.

For the past fifteen years he succeeded in antagonizing me at every possible opportunity.  I’d plant a new tree; he’d plant two.  I built a small deck in my back yard; he built a bigger one, with a roof and mosquito netting.  Every year, my family and I would have a small fireworks show on the Fourth of July.  His were always bigger, more dramatic.

One year, he hired a live band to drown out the large stereo system we had set up during our barbecue.  Half of the friends and coworkers I had invited had eaten their ribs, hamburgers, and hot dogs, and walked over casually, “out of curiosity” they claimed.  By night fall they had yet to return, and the fireworks display I had purchased – one of the bigger sets of rockets, fountains, and roman candles we’d ever bought from the nearby Indian reservation – was ooo’ed and ahh’ed over by only my wife and my son.  Of course, until Jameson started setting his off.  Then, even my dear family turned their attention away from the best fireworks display our house would have ever seen.

If you have never had such a neighbor, I’m sure you find my distaste for him petty and childish.  At one point, I would have agreed with you.  But fifteen years of succumbing to incessant one-upmanship puts even the slightest detail into a different perspective.

I smiled and waved back it him, however, because for once I was actually ahead of him.  Not the puppy – a pet is too dear an item to use in such childish games.  No, I had something that I knew he would never attain, something he could never best.

A close friend of mine happened to own a small nursery not far outside of town.  Days before the arrival of the puppy, I was visiting the nursery and I happened upon a beautiful, elegant rose bush.  Its petals were such a delicate pink-red, with slight veins of lavender and violet, so soft and fragile that it nearly broke my heart to touch it.  I asked my friend about it, as I had never seen such a wonderful work of nature’s art before.

“Ah yes,” he responded, setting down three large pots he’d been moving.  “That’s a very rare rose from Africa.  Only grows natively on one side of a mountain in Kenya.  I was very lucky to get that one bush – they aren’t exported much nowadays.”

I had to have it.  It was beautiful, yes, but it was also something that Jameson couldn’t have.  He would just die of jealousy! I purchased it, and my friend offered to have it delivered due to its fragility and rarity.  I declined, not wanting to waste his staff’s time for a single rose bush.  I drove it carefully to my house, and planted it proudly in the center of my yard that very day.

So I waved back at Jameson as my wife and I exited the car with our new puppy, then hurried inside to avoid any of his attempts at neighborly small talk.  I had much more important matters at hand: I had a puppy I needed to name, and time was growing short.

Quite short indeed, as it turned out.  No sooner had I set my keys on the kitchen counter when a knock came at the door.  I grimaced.  This was too soon! The poor darling had barely gotten her feet on the kitchen floor, and my family was going to pelt her with obscene attempts at a name.  There was nothing I could do about it however, only brace myself and hope for the best.

“Watch her while I get the door honey,” my wife said.  The little puppy looked up at me, wagging its tail as though knowing of the coming travesty and hoping I could prevent it.  It stumbled towards me, stepping on its long, Beagle ears and tripping itself.  I pledged right then I would not allow anyone else to name it but myself.  Perhaps my wife, as it was hers as well, but most certainly it would not fall prey to the Ceremony at hand.

No sooner had I made my promise than the sound of children filled the house.

“Puppy? Puppy!” High-pitched voices rang through the living room.  The puppy cringed, but still wagged its tail, frightened but trying hard to be brave.  The children found us and fell to the ground in playful admiration.  Their parents and my wife joined us shortly.  Unfortunately, the Pastor had been unable to attend; his presence would have been useful as a reminder that avenging any name chosen for the darling animal would have eternal consequences.

After my wife had served drinks and forced me to ensure our grill was in working order, the Display began with its usual questions: When did you get her (though my wife had told them over the phone)? How old is she? What breed is she? Is she full blood or mix? They circled close around the question I knew was coming, but like vultures they bided their time.  We talked weather and work, sports and celebrities, politics and other crimes, waiting for the question to arise.  The children played with the puppy, tugging its ears and its tail, laughing as it tried to chase them and stumbled or walked on its ears.  They told it to sit, roll over, and lie down, disappointed to see the puppy wag its tail and stare at them, the commands already faded from instinct.

Nearly an hour of distracting them had passed, and I was starting to gain hope that the dreaded question would die before it was born.  Then one of the children spoke.

“So, what are you gonna call it?”

Never before has the murder of a child seemed like such a pleasant idea.  I grimaced, but no one seemed to notice; the Ceremony had begun, and all of them, my dear wife included, were beginning their parts.

“Call him Fluffy!” one of the other children cried out, much in character with the Ceremony: as anyone who has suffered through it will affirm, the first few names suggested are clichés like “Fluffy”, “Rover”, “Rex”, etc., and most often the gender is wrong, as the puppy has yet to establish itself as male or female in the common eye.

“She isn’t very fluffy though,” I corrected, trying to sound patient and calm, knowing I failed miserably at it.

“How about Princess?” one of the other children said.  The child looked at the dog and bellowed: “Princess! Are you ‘Princess’?” The dog did not reply, other than sniffing at the ground and wagging her tail.

Thus it began.  Someone suggested “Cookie,” which started a barrage of food names – “Cream,” “Milk,” “Candy,” “Cookie” again for some reason.  My wife’s sister saw a CD of classical music lying on the table and that started a short battery of composers names, with the prefix “Ms.” thrown in front when they remembered it was a female puppy: “Ms.  Beethoven,” “Ms.  Mozart,” “Ms.  Bach.” Similarly they approached the names of past political leaders, with the same prefix thrown in where appropriate: “Victoria,” “Ms.  Churchill,” “Cleopatra,” “Elizabeth,” “Ms.  Lincoln.” There was no true logic behind the name choices, as there never is during the Ceremony.  Someone would find a subject that might suggest several words to name a puppy, and the group would exhaust the list as it came to mind.

I had nearly given in to homicidal urges when there came a knock on the door.  I hurried to answer it, hoping that the Ceremony would dwindle before I would find myself in need of legal counsel.  They continued as I walked, now harassing the animal with floral names: “Rose,” “Violet,” “Blossom.” I opened the door with hope that it would be someone able to engage me in a more pleasant situation, perhaps an IRS agent or door-to-door salesman.

A young man stood at the door, wearing a light green uniform and a name tag indicating his name as “Chip”.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m Chip, from the nursery.  I have…” He looked at a pad of paper in his hand.  “Eight rose bushes for a Mr.  Richard Jameson.”

My heart stopped.

No, I thought.  He couldn’t have.  He wouldn’t have.

I knew better though; he likely could have, and he most certainly would have.  I took a deep breath to steady myself.

“I’m sorry, Chip.  He lives next door.” The boy stepped back, looked at the number on the side of the door, and then smiled apologetically.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he said.  “They gave me the wrong address.”

“Not a problem,” I said, then watched him walk down the side walk.  I stepped outside the door, hearing the ceremony continue from inside – “Jewel,” “Ruby,” “Emerald.” Even shutting the door behind me I could hear them bludgeoning the dog with names.

Perhaps he bought regular roses, I told myself, hoping against all hope that it was true.  Chip climbed in his truck, drove it forward the short distance to Jameson’s house, and stopped it as Jameson walked out to greet him.  I watched impatiently as they discussed something I couldn’t hear, and my impatience turned to horror as Chip pulled out a rather large rose bush from the back of his truck.  The delicate pink-red of the blooms and the lines of lavender and violet that I could only barely see from my porch told me what I already expected.

Jameson waved at me as Chip unloaded more of the “one-of-a-kind” rose bushes.  I forced a smile and a slight wave, then walked back into the house.  The sounds of the Ceremony greeted me like the buzzing of a mosquito that will not die.

“That bastard Jameson! He’s done it again!” I shouted, forgetting the presence of children in my anger.  I started back to where I had left the poor puppy with our family, and took only a couple of steps before I realized that the Ceremony had stopped.  I looked up, and my eyes fell on the puppy.

It was running to me.  Its tail was wagging, and though it was still tripping on its ears as it came, it was showing more excitement than it had since we’d gotten it.  My family looked at me, stunned, and I shook my head in disbelief.

No, it can’t be, I thought to myself.  It must be a mistake.  The puppy looked up at me, wagging its tail with fierce happiness.  Someone had finally stumbled across the collection of syllables the puppy had decided was its name.  I looked at my wife, she looked at me, and I looked back down at the puppy.  The room was utterly silent, save for the swishing of the puppy’s tail on the carpet.  I tried random words from my previous sentences again, hoping that the puppy would not react to any of them in particular.

“He’s? Done?” The puppy sniffed my shoe.  “Again? It?” Nothing.  I started to sigh in relief, and my wife stopped me.

“No, dear, you said something that caught her attention.  Say it all again.”

“That-bastard-Jameson-he’s-?” The puppy’s head jerked.  I looked at my wife and shook my head again, as though I could negate what that simple motion declared.  “You try it honey,” I said, hoping it was my voice and not my words that she responded to.

“That Bastard Jameson? Come here That Bastard Jameson.” The puppy turned and ran to my wife.  My wife’s sister tried with the same result.  Her husband tried, and the puppy ran straight to him.  One of the children started to try, but a stern look from his mother reminded him that the name was hardly polite.

I could not believe it.  Had the puppy been a boy, the name could be considered humorous.  I would still despise such light heartedness in the naming of the animal, but I would have felt somewhat more at ease.  For a female puppy, however, it was far from ladylike.

It was decided though.  A name that is forced upon an animal can be changed at an owner’s whim, but when a new puppy decides for itself what word or collection of words it will answer to, that is what it will ever be named.

The Naming Ceremony thus complete, my family left my wife and me with our new puppy.  Life continued on much as we expected (save the name, of course) with all the trimmings of life with a new puppy: midnight bathroom walks, shoes and valuables discovered half-chewed, bags of food discarded after a single bowl served and left sitting for hours.  My wife, That Bastard Jameson, and I are well on our way to a happy, pet-filled life.

If you are of a curious heart, you may be wondering what happened to the rare, “one-of-a-kind” rose bush I planted with such pride in the center of my yard.  It died.  In spite of daily watering, trimming the dead blooms and branches as necessary, even giving it top-of-the-line rose food, it has become little more than a collection of thorny sticks decorating the grass.

That bastard Jameson – the human one – has had no such luck.  His are blooming beautifully, all eight of them.  I can see them perfectly out my window, every day, and if the breeze is right I can even smell them as I take my That Bastard Jameson out for her morning routine.

The Waitress

Yeah, I was the last one who saw Yvette that night.  We’d just finished our shifts, and she left with … well, this guy.  Never seen him before, but he was nice.  Didn’t think anything of it.  God, I hope she’s alright, and she just decided to quit her job or whatever.  But I don’t think the police would’ve come by if they didn’t think something was up.

It’d been a long shift, one of those ones that just drags on and on.  Both of our stations were slow as hell, but the boss wanted there to be two of us on the floor until after the holidays.  We weren’t complaining; we both needed the extra money.  Yvette more than I did, because her slob of a husband just quit his job.  Can you believe that?  Only a couple of weeks until Christmas, and he decides he’s better than the company he works for, and just leaves it.

So anyways, she needed the money, I always needed the money, so we were working.  About half an hour before we started closing up and doing our sidework, this guy walks in.  Looked like a real nice guy, too: suit, tie, short black hair and the sweetest smile you can imagine.  He sat at the counter, which was Yvette’s station, and ordered a cup of coffee.  Even called her “ma’am”.  You don’t get that much these days.  You’re lucky to get a tip most of the time, and forget about a “please” or “thank you.”

I went on about my business, and I could hear them talking, Yvette laughing and this guy, his voice was just as smooth as silk.  And not like used-car-salesman smooth, either.  He seemed genuine, at least.  I could see the way she was standing by him too, she looked like a school girl talking to the head quarterback of the football team.

Yvette’s not stupid, let me say that right now.  I mean, except for staying with her deadbeat husband for so long, but I can kinda understand why she’d do that; he’d started out good, but things just went downhill.  She probably expected him to go back to how he used to be, and that would’ve been great.

But, other than that, she wasn’t stupid.  She wasn’t the kinda girl who would just jump all over someone who showed her a little bit of affection.  So when I saw her smile touch her eyes that night – the first time I’d seen that since she’d gotten married, actually – I knew something was up.  I knew there was something about that guy, and she’d be stupid to let her chump of a husband get in the way.

So, when she came up to me later, when I was counting out what little I’d made in tips that day, I knew what was on her mind.

“What do you think?” she asked me.

“About what?” I said, playing stupid.

“About him.  He wants me to go out and have drinks with him after work.  Do you think I … no, I couldn’t.”

I smiled at her.  She’d told me all about the problems she was having with her husband, and it wasn’t just the money either.  The guy didn’t beat her – not with his hands, at least – but he was hardly nice to her.  And forget about time in the sack; he’d stay up all night watching TV, and she’d be long in dreamland by the time he came to bed.  Never let her do anything with her friends – well, me; he didn’t let her have any friends to speak of.  Always got mad at her for working late and not having the house all spic-and-span, or not having dinner ready for him.  I knew exactly what she should do.

“Girl,” I told her, “you only live once, and I don’t call what you have going on with that jerk you call a husband ‘living’.  I say go for it.”

She looked at me and smiled, but I could tell she was torn.

“Listen,” I said, setting down the ten dollars I’d made that day.  “You know what feels right and what doesn’t.  Do you think you’d regret going out with him – it’s just for drinks, remember? – more than going home to get yelled at for working late?”

She nodded as I talked, and I could tell she’d made up her mind.

“You know what?  You’re right.  I’ve been thinking of filing for divorce from that son of a bitch anyways.  I think I’ll do it.”

I hugged her.  “I knew you’d come along some day,” I said to her, probably a little too proud that she’d finally started making a bit of a difference in her own life.  She took off her apron and went back out to the counter and sat down next to her new friend.  I poured them each a cup of coffee, and tried not to eavesdrop.  I succeeded, for the most part; all I heard was that he was a recruiter for some company, sounded middle eastern and definitely not a company I’d heard of before.  Other than that, I stayed away from them as much as I could.

Finally, they left and I locked the door behind them.  That was the last time I saw Yvette or that guy – didn’t even catch his name.  The cops came by a couple of days later, saying that her husband reported her missing and they were just following up.  She never called to quit or anything.  I’m worried about her, but, at the same time, maybe she finally just had enough and left that asshole for something better for her.  And I say more power to her.

The Composer: Armageddon in C# Minor

The Composer:
Armageddon in C# Minor

“No!  No, no, no, no, no!”  The piano echoed his frustration, belching out misspoken chords to punctuate his outburst and yelling silently in pain as he slammed the lid shut.  Isaac glared hatefully at the instrument, breathing in ragged gasps, his lips twisting his otherwise handsome face with a snarl.  The pages of the composition he was working on fluttered to the carpet.

“I almost had it!  Christ!”  He struggled to keep from abusing the instrument further, and stormed off as he found himself loosing that battle.  Within moments, he returned from the hallway bathroom, his face still dripping with cooling water from its once-again human countenance.  He took a deep breath, gathered up the sheets of scribbled notes and rests from the floor, and took his seat again.  Gently, almost kindly he raised the lid that covered the keys, and started playing again a few measures before where he’d left off.  He hummed along softly as the music floated from his hands.

His fingers came to their previous stopping point, and choked once more.  He started again from a measure before the last notes he’d written, and again his fingers died as the unfinished melody hung in the air.

Isaac pulled his hands from the keys of the upright and stared intently, almost pleadingly at the black and white bars he had devoted his life to.

“Dammit!“  Half from the force of his scream, half from the blind swinging of his arm, his composition went flying throughout the room.  His short outburst exhausted his rage, leaving a hollow despair in its wake.  He hung his head and cried silently into his hands.  Absorbed in his lost creativity, he didn’t notice Karen until she placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Not going well dear?” she asked kindly.  He laughed bitterly.

“Even ‘not going well’ would be alright.  It’s not going at all.  I can’t even get the wrong notes out anymore.”

“You’ve been working for hours Isaac; why don’t you call it a night and get some rest?”  Her voice was soothing, but it didn’t kill his frustrated despondency completely.  She rubbed his back gently as he stared at the ancient Baldwin upright, like a petulant child at the door of a friend who had to go home early.  Finally, he sighed wearily.

“You’re right.  I’m sorry.  I’ll be there in a moment.”  She brushed a kiss on the top of his head and walked out of his studio without a word.  Isaac watched her walk into the hall, and his gaze drifted back to the piano, no longer petulant, but longing, sorrowful, as though the piano were the fresh grave of a recently departed friend.  He thought for a moment about trying to get the next measure written, then resigned himself to bed for the night.

He found Karen already asleep when he entered, smiling placidly at whatever dreams graced her night.  He quietly slipped under the covers and turned out the light.  Within moments, in spite of his frustration, Isaac was asleep.

In his dream, he stood alone on a grassy hill as sunset turned to twilight.  Isaac could see the lights of a nameless city below him, which seemed to twinkle and shimmer like the countless stars that were slowly appearing above.  He had no idea where he was, but that seemed unimportant as he watched the sky near the horizon change from orange to violet.  Through the corner of his eye, he saw a small hairline streak across the velvet of night, and glanced over in time to see a shooting star fade away.  Isaac smiled with a near child-like wonderment and closed his eyes.  “I wish I-”

The sounds of laughter cut off his words.  The sight of family members, most long since dead, smiling and staring expectantly at him greeted his confusion as he opened his eyes.  He looked around in astonishment; he was sitting at the kitchen table in the house he grew up in, the candles on a large store-bought cake in front of him welcoming Isaac to his eighth year of childhood.  Uncle Casey was patting him on the shoulder, still years away from his unsuccessful fight with lung cancer.  His mom was sitting across from him without a trace of the dementia that she was dealing with during Isaac’s waking hours.

Not one to question a dream, Isaac smiled widely, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.  He blew his hardest, wanting to get all of the candles on his first try this year, and started his wish again.  “I wish I could-”

A sudden drop in temperature froze the words in his mind, and he opened his eyes again.  There was smoke, and at first his mind tried to convince itself that it was only the smoke from the birthday candles.  It was much too thick to be the remnants of the flames from cheap wax birthday candles, and viscous, like an oil floating through the air.  As he watched, it shifted, coalescing into a vague outline.  He looked around to see where the smoke was coming from, and was only momentarily surprised to see a small gold oil lamp as the source.  Before he could think further about it, the outline in the smoke solidified, and he stood face to face with a rather non-descript looking man, probably closer to forty than twenty.  Isaac looked at him with confusion; he was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans and staring right back at Isaac, obviously unimpressed.

“Who are you?” Isaac asked.

“I’m a genie, Einstein.  Didn’t you see the lamp?  The smoke?  The obvious theme in this little fantasy you’ve created for your slumbering pleasure?  C’mon, you’re a bright guy; I’m sure you could piece it together.”

“But I though genies were supposed to be…”

“What?  Arabic?  Big, strong upper body, sandwiched between a turban and a smoke trail?  A few centuries ago, and in the Middle East, sure.  Not today though.  Besides, that’s a racist stereotype, and if you keep it up I’ll contact the ACLU.”

“The ACLU handles genies?”  The genie threw his hands up in melodramatic frustration and glared at Isaac with mock indignation.

“And why not?  Aren’t we entitled to the same respect as anyone else?  If you prick us, do we not say ‘Ow, dammit, that hurt’?” The genie waved off Isaac’s look of confused curiosity.  “Anyways, on to business.  I’m sure you know how this works-three wishes, no more, most anything you want.  You have one wish left, what can I-”

“Wait, one left?  I haven’t made any wishes.”

“No, you didn’t finish any wishes.  Sorry, I can’t help you there; take that up with your subconscious for cutting you off.  So, one wish; what’s your desire my glorious master?”  The sarcasm was lost on Isaac as he contemplated his final wish.

“I want to make music again,” he said after a few moments of deliberation.  The genie looked at him in astonishment.

“That’s all?  Pfft, you can do that already.  Your little tantrum tonight was more musical than any of the garbage on the radio.  For God’s sake man, you could have anything!  Riches, fame, women.”  The genie punctuated the last word with a wink and a nudge with an elbow.  “I’m sure you can do better than that.  Why do you want to make music?  What do you hope to achieve with it?”

Isaac though hard for a bit before he responded.

“I want to change the world with my music.  I want it to be special, to…well, change the world.”  The genie considered this for a moment with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

“I think I can manage that.  Is that your wish?”

“Yes.  I wish to write music that will change the world.”

“Your wish is my command, master.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, House is on right now and I don’t want to miss any more of it.”

“Wait, that’s it?”

“What did you expect?  Some flashy neon lights and show girls?”

“Well, how do I know it happened?”  The genie gave him another mischievous grin.

“Oh, you’ll know.”  The genie paused, considering his statement.  “Well, maybe you won’t.  You couldn’t figure out who I was, so you can’t be too bright after all.  Anyways, it doesn’t matter.  It’s done, we’re done, and I think Dr. House just berated one of his lackeys again, so I’m off.”  The genie faded before Isaac could say anything further, leaving him alone with the smoke and the lamp.  Slowly, those faded to nothing as well, leaving Isaac alone in the darkness of a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.

Isaac woke the next morning to the sound of Karen leaving for work, with the dream fluttering towards the edge of his memory.  Already it was fading, and by the time he’d poured his first cup of coffee it was all but gone.  He could remember, however, that he was supposed to be able to write again, if not why.  With a fearful hope Isaac made his way back to the studio.

The composition he’d been working on lay neatly stacked on top of the piano, indicating that Karen had been in here to clean up a little as she got ready this morning.  He smiled softly, lovingly, and sat down on the bench.

He glanced at yesterday’s work for a moment, and then pulled a few blank sheets from the bottom of the stack.  No, he thought as he glanced at the previous night’s scribbles again, today we try something different.  He grabbed a pen from the cup that Karen had suggested he store such items in, and pushed back the lid from over the keys.  Then he wrote.

Isaac wrote like a man possessed, hands flying back and forth from the keys to the paper, wrong notes molded into his most beautiful melody ever, clunks and bangs shaped into a scenic harmony.  He cursed often in artistic frustration, and giggled with glee just as frequently as the pieces fell into place.

In just over an hour he’d written a modestly short tango, in a seductively minor key with little bright patches for contrast.  It was by far the best work he’d ever done, and although he knew there were a couple of places that would need a small tweak or two, it was the quickest he’d ever finished a piece from start to finish.  Even his shorter ones had normally taken most of a day at best.

He played through the piece twice more, enjoying the spicy Latin rhythm as it danced from his hands.  Isaac could feel the passion he’d poured into it, a passion he had started to think he’d lost, a passion that was now blazing away in the dark, smoldering swoops and dives of the melody and counterpoint.  In a brief moment of further inspiration, he scribbled a title across the top of the first page-Los Fuegos, “The Fires.”  It seemed fitting for a piece of such burning intensity.

After Isaac’s second run of his new tango, a loud growl from his stomach reminded him that he’d skipped breakfast and was on the verge of missing lunch.  He stood up and stretched, satisfied with what he’d accomplished, and walked out to the kitchen.  He stopped to turn on the television for some background noise as he fixed a sandwich, and the “Breaking News” banner caught his attention as he came back from the kitchen.  An attractive female reporter was standing in front of a large, burning building.  The superimposed lettering denoted her as Tina Lockhart.

“…one of the strangest coincidences I’ve seen in my years of reporting Elliot.  The fires here at this warehouse on Johnson Avenue appear to be dying down now, and I’m getting reports that most of the others are showing similar signs of being controlled.  Can you confirm that in the studio?”  A man’s disembodied voice came from the TV.

“We’re getting mixed reports on that Tina, so we can’t really confirm or deny it.  Do you have any information on how it started yet, or any casualties?”

“Right now the police and fire crews are more concerned about controlling the blaze, which as I said, it appears they are managing.  They have no official cause as of this point, but are not ruling out arson.

“There have been some casualties; mostly minor injuries, although one firefighter was killed when part of the roof collapsed about 20 minutes ago, and two people-civilians-have been taken to Western Memorial Hospital where they are being treated for smoke inhalation and other injuries.  They are both listed as critical, but stable.”

“Thank you, Tina.”  The camera cut to the news studio, where a well-dressed man with graying hair and a grandfatherly but somber appearance was adjusting some papers on his desk.

“If you’re just joining us, our top story today is a series of fires which, in what has to be one of the strangest coincidences ever, are spanning across the globe.  We have reports coming in from London, New York, Charleston, Johannesburg, and Moscow to name a few of the larger blazes.  So far, over one-hundred-seventy cities and municipalities around the world have reported large fires in a variety of settings.  There have been no indications that this is a coordinated terrorist attack of any kind, although officials have yet to rule out any causes for any of the fires.  There have been over fifteen hundred confirmed deaths, and an estimated seven thousand injuries reported from the blazes, most of which started within the past two hours.  In other news…”

Isaac turned off the television as he finished his sandwich.  He thought about calling Karen to make sure she was alright, and decided against it.  She was across town from that particular warehouse, and would most likely get in trouble for taking a personal call.  He put his plate in the sink and walked back to his studio.

“Okay,” he said aloud, sitting at the bench and cracking his knuckles-a habit Karen had long since given up trying to break him of.  “Let’s try something a little different.”  He grabbed another handful of the lined paper and his pen, and took to the keys again.

Again, the music flowed smoothly from fingertips to keys as it had earlier, although this wasn’t a tango pouring forth, or any of the more popular styles of “classical” music.  A dark rain was washing over the piano this time, triumphant but angry, a self righteous rage that he could not understand and didn’t argue.  He didn’t care where the music was coming from-he was certainly much happier than the moody outpouring he was watching-but it was still coming, and that was the important part.  Visions of future critics comparing this work-in-progress with something from the pen of Chopin or Rachmaninoff danced through his head, and he failed to restrain a grin even as he chided himself for his narcissism.

Three hours passed before he drew the final bar line.  Although a much longer piece than his earlier tango, it still came through much quicker than Isaac would’ve expected, especially for sounding more like a performance-ready final draft than the rough sketch he’d normally complete in such a short amount of time.  He played it from start to finish twice more, as he had with the tango, and thought for a moment, searching for a title for this new composition.  Finally it came to him: Prélude aux Révolutions.  He silently thanked the French for giving him such a beautiful language to title his piece with, and stood up, smiling and very pleased with himself.

He answered the insistent call of nature and went to the kitchen to find a drink.  It was still early, but after completing two new pieces from scratch, he felt that a beer-or maybe a tumbler of scotch-was well deserved.  He settled on the scotch, and, curious to see how the fires were panning out, he turned on the television.  Ms. Lockhart and her cameraman were standing on a street corner Isaac recognized as being a few blocks from the earlier warehouse fire, and he could see that Tina looked a little frightened under her stoic journalist’s façade.

“…utter chaos here, there really isn’t any other way to describe it Elliot.  Not long after the fire department seemed to have the blaze under control, a large group of people started up Tieton Avenue and-”  Elliot cut her off, as the camera cut back to the studio.

“Tina, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but we’re starting to get reports that other cities are rioting as well.  The reports I have indicate no relation to the earlier fires, most of which have been put out at this time.  There also seems to be no motives for any of the uprisings, although sources in Istanbul- where police and emergency crews are dealing with one of the larger revolts right now-say that their incident is related to an earlier political demonstration, although they have yet to state the nature of that demonstration or the relationship to the revolt.”  He paused, pressed against his unseen earpiece for a moment, and nodded his head as if merely acknowledging directions to someone’s house.

“I’ve just been informed that Tina’s location is not the only area here in town where people are rioting.  We’re getting word in from Market street that a car has been set on fire; there is a small structure fire at 1^st and Widdicent, which is apparently the result of looting; and-”  He took another hand-to-the-earpiece pause, with a quick nod thrown in for good measure, and continued “and it appears a rather large crowd has gathered down Sierra Madre Way.  Folks, please-”

Isaac didn’t wait to see what Elliot was going to implore of his audience; Karen’s offices were near Sierra Madre, and it was already time for her to be on her way home from work.  He grabbed the cordless phone from its cradle in the kitchen, misdialed the numbers to her cell phone twice, and breathed a sigh of relief when he finally hit the right numbers and she answered.

“You’re alright.  Oh, thank God Karen.”

“Oh, of course I am hon, don’t worry about me.  How is it looking there by the house?”  He looked out the window to the sight of the man across the street checking the mail, topless and scratching himself unselfconsciously.  Although the site was quite revolting, it wasn’t quite the uprising happening around the city.

“It’s fine here.  Where are you?”

“About two blocks from the office.  I-oh crap.”

“What?  What’s ‘oh crap?’  No ‘oh crap’, honey.”

“I just turned the corner, and there’s a large group of them.”  She spoke quietly, as though her voice would alert “them” to her presence before the Honda’s little four-cylinder engine would.

“Honey?  Keep cool, okay?  Can you back out?”

“No, I’m gonna try-oh crap.”

“What ‘oh crap’ this time?”  Isaac’s voice was rising, both in pitch and volume, as hers got calmer and steadier.  One listening in on the conversation could almost expect the roles reversed, with Karen sitting safely at home and trying to calm a panicking Isaac while he sat in a little car in the middle of a riot.

“They turned towards me; they’re headed over here.”  Her voice was a soft rock now, steady and firm, but little more than a whisper.

“Karen, back up!  Get out of there!”  He was almost yelling now.

“I can’t; they’re all around the car.  They’re starting to-”  A loud clunk cut off her words.  Isaac could still hear her in the background, although distant; he figured she must’ve dropped her cell phone.

He could also hear the loud squeak-thunk of what sounded like the car rocking on its springs, and the thumping of hands on hard glass.  Under these eerie sounds, like the strings of an orchestra playing harmony under a percussion solo, was the mindless yelling of a multitude of people.  There was no chanting, no cries for exoneration or punishment of some figure; what few words he could make out were obscene vulgarities coming from ageless and genderless voices.

And, of course, he could hear Karen as well, her steady façade now crumbling into panicked groans that rose and fell with the squeak-thump of the rocking of the car.  His mind’s eye could picture her bouncing side to side, staring helplessly at the people, those trying to get in the car and those just there to see something break.  He put the picture out of his mind and yelled to her more, telling her to back the car up, but only the tinny performance of this private, grotesque symphony playing over her cell phone answered his cries.  Karen’s groans suddenly turned into quick, high pitched speech, the words all blurring into chunks of sound.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, hesgotta-”  There was a soft pop, like someone setting off a firecracker under a blanket two blocks away, followed immediately by the tinkling of glass and a loud, painful shriek that Isaac almost couldn’t recognize as coming from Karen.  He screamed her name into the phone, not knowing what else to do.  The mob was slightly louder now, although no more intense.

There was another pop, slightly louder this time and with no glass falling afterwards.  Karen answered with a pillowy “ooomf,” cutting short her wail of pain.  He could hear her moaning softly and painfully, like she was waking from three days of mindless binge drinking.

Although only a second or two passed as he listened to his life’s love uttering her death moans, it seemed like an eternity before the final soft pop came through the earpiece of the phone.  It was swiftly followed by the sound of something heavy hitting something soft and cushioned, then apparently bouncing off that and smacking against something hard.  The steady blare of the Honda’s horn told Isaac that the latter must’ve been the steering wheel.  Although he knew it was useless, he screamed Karen’s name into the phone for several minutes, competing for his dead love’s attentions with the dull roar of the mob, which itself was almost drowned out by the horn.

Unaware of how hard he was crying, he hung up the phone, intending to call 911, then cursed himself heavily.  What were they going to do?  Surely they had too many other calls; they couldn’t handle everything.  On top of that, he’d just severed his last connection with Karen by pushing the “End Call” button.  He sat on the carpet and unconsciously wiped away tears he didn’t even know he was crying.

He sat on the floor for quite some time before his shock turned to the anger that only the grief-stricken know, that futile, dark rage that wells inside, needing release and never finding it completely enough.  Knowing he probably should call the police and file a report in spite of their assured overload, Isaac instead stood up and did the only thing that seemed rational to him.  He walked back to his studio.

He didn’t bother with the light, although with the studio’s curtains closed, the room was much darker in the evening light than the rest of the house.  He didn’t bother with pen and paper either; he had no plans of recording his grief for posterity.  He sat at the bench, pushed the lid back from the keys, and started to crack his knuckles.  He could hear Karen’s voice in the back of his mind, warning him about a future with arthritis, and with a deep breath and a silent tear, Isaac skipped his normal pre-performance habit and played.

The moment his fingertips touched the keys, he knew nothing but the music pouring from the instrument, an Armageddon of sound, melodies and harmonies fighting the ultimate battle of an untold war.  Scales and arpeggios fought relentlessly up and down the battlefield of the keyboard; big, fat chords cannoned throughout eternity, hushing into the most mournful melody line never heard by another soul, then roaring to life again as new reinforcements of anguish and rage swept through him.

With the persistence of the ocean, Isaac’s battle raged on, waves of music crashing freely on the ebony and ivory shoreline in front him.  From violent crest to sorrowful trough, as one battalion of scales won ground against a company of trills and tremolos, only to loose it again to an artillery barrage of chords, he played each wave with a passion he never could’ve put to paper, nor performed for others, even his all-too mortal beloved.

It could be said that it was technically a heart attack that silenced the keys in Isaac’s studio, a combination of physical strain from playing as dramatically as he had and the emotional strain from the loss of Karen.  However, a broken heart may be more accurate, although considered too romantic to find itself as a coroner’s official cause of death.  Regardless, shortly after the sun rose, a final chord rang loudly through the house, and Isaac’s final composition finished its coda.  As the ringing sound drifted through the air, fading slowly as though wanting to keep the composer’s memory alive just moments longer, the somber, weary voice of the news anchor came from the television.

“…no information on where the missiles came from, or what cities remain targets.  Tina Lockhart is speaking with Staff Sergeant Howard, acting press liaison for the National Guard unit sent in to assist with the earlier riots.  Tina?”

“Yes Elliot.  Sergeant Howard, what details can you give us regarding these attacks, such as perhaps the source?”

“There really isn’t much I can say about the attacks at this time.  All we know is that we’ve been tracking missiles coming both from inland sources and from various off shore targets.”

“What cities have already been hit?”

“U.S. or global?  Here in the states we have confirmed strikes throughout most of the eastern seaboard, the western half of the Great Lakes region, much of the Gulf Coast, and unconfirmed strikes around St. Louis and Memphis.  We-oh Christ…”  Tina turned and followed his gaze to the sky as the soldier started running in the opposite direction.

“Oh God.  Danny, are you getting this?  Turn around, dammit!  And keep rolling.”  Obeying her commands, the camera moved with a sickening lurch.  A small pinpoint of light drew a white hairline across the early morning sky for a brief moment, disappearing from view as it fell silently behind a nearby building.  There was a brilliant white emanating from the screen in the empty house for a fraction of a second, and then only static as the missile erupted.  The last strings on Isaac’s piano ceased their now inaudible vibrations as a distant roar swelled through the house, growing from silence to a bellowing thunder in less than a breath of time.

Although the blast destroyed much of the area beyond any recognition, one object stood like a monolith in the scorched neighborhood.  As a gentle breeze blew some of the ashes of the instrument’s former owner off its keys, Isaac’s piano, thoroughly untouched by the explosion and resultant fires, played a quiet nocturne in the evening aftermath.  The haunting melody floated on the soft, cleansing wind as it’s keys bounced lightly, moved by unseen fingers.  The last, brittle remains of the composer fell from the keyboard to join the ashes of his studio as the nocturne came to its soft climax, and Isaac became part of the wind as the breeze floated the final, mournful chord into the air.

A Stranger

A strange man came into my bar last night. He was old, probably late sixties or early seventies. I didn’t see any lights pulling into the parking lot, so I guessed he’d been walking. That’s not unusual; we get a lot of folks from the nearby apartments walking in, wanting to hedge their bets against the cops. The story he told though, now that was unusual. I’m getting a little ahead of myself though.

The bar was empty both before and after he came in. We’re not exactly a booming place here in El Paso anyways, but this close to the holidays we’re pretty much always dead – everyone wants to save their money for presents, not spend it on beer.

I heard the door jingle – the stupid little decorations the bartenders put up when I’m not around – and looked up to see this old man walk in, covered in jackets and looking like he’d never met a razor before in his life. My first thought, of course, was that he was a bum; we get a few of those around every once in a while, and I’m more than willing to buy them a beer or two for doing odd jobs around the place.

Something about him told me that he was different though. Maybe it was the way that he walked, or something in his eyes, but he wasn’t a regular, run-of-the-mill bum. He sat down at the bar and I walked over to him.

“What can I get you?” I asked as I finished drying the glass I’d been washing.

His accent was strange; not quite British, definitely not American, but it was clear enough to where I could tell he’d at least grown up speaking English.

“I’ll have a … oh, what do you people call it … oh, that’s right. I’ll have a ‘beer’.” His voice was pleasant, happy, not the near-bitter tone that most of our patrons have. I gave him his beer, and he paid me from a large wad of bills that I wouldn’t have expected given his appearance. He put a twenty in the tip jar, and sipped his beer with a sigh of relief.

I went back to my cleaning, letting him drink in peace while I washed glasses and mopped behind the bar. It was mostly busy work; there wasn’t much to clean up, since there hadn’t been any customers earlier in the day or the night before. He called me over for another beer, and I poured it for him. This time, when he offered to pay, I waved him off.

“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house,” I told him, and he smiled. He paused for a moment, as if trying to find the right words, and then his expression brightened.

“That’s right,” he said, “‘Thank you’. I knew I’d remember.”

I wiped the bar off to one side of him – again, just busy work. “So, where you from?” I asked. It was obvious that he wasn’t from here, or from any country I could guess. That didn’t mean much; around here, the only two languages I ever heard were English and Spanish, and it’s not like I’ve toured the world or anything.

He smiled, a warm, knowing smile, and sipped from his mug before he spoke again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, and something in his voice made me think he was right.

“Well,” I said, setting my rag down on a shelf behind the bar. “Try me. I hear a lot of crazy stories in this place; I’m sure one more won’t hurt.”

He laughed. “No, no. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt. But…”

I laughed a little. Truth was I was dead bored, and he could’ve told me he was from the moon and I would’ve probably listened intently. “Well, try me anyways,” I repeated. He sighed, and was silent long enough that I almost thought he’d fallen asleep. Eventually, though, he looked up, a smile still lighting his face and an intensity in his eyes that almost scared me.

“I am,” he began, “a refugee, as your people would call it.” Great, I thought. We’re going to have immigration beating down the door now. I almost kicked him out right then, but he raised his hand before I could say anything.

“Not quite the right word, but close enough,” he said, and I relaxed a little bit. At least I could hear him out.

“I come from a place that isn’t unlike this one, or, at least, it used to be quite similar. Better, actually, but I won’t get into that. It … it doesn’t matter any more anyways.” He said this last part with a distant hurt, and was silent again for a brief moment before continuing.

“My ‘country’,” he said, with the same excitement he’d had earlier over finding the right words, “is currently in the middle of a … ‘revolution’, I believe you call it. I have been lucky enough to … escape. To find my way to your land, one I’d heard of many times but only recently truly believed existed. I must say, I’m quite pleased I made it, too. This place is … nice.”

“You obviously haven’t been here very long,” I said. He laughed.

“No, not long at all. Only a few … ‘hours’,” he said.

I didn’t know what to make of his story. I’ve never paid much attention to the news, so I didn’t know what countries were fighting at the moment. There was something about him that sounded reliable though (and yes, that’s gotten me into trouble before, too), and I figured I’d at least give him the benefit of the doubt. I was going to ask him some questions, but he continued before I could start.

“The place I come from is … scarred, you could say. I’ve come here seeking refuge, to finish out my life in what peace I may be able to find.” He took a sip from his beer, and a look of surprised anguish came over his face. I almost laughed; it was terribly melodramatic, but he took me by the arm with a grip that seemed unnaturally strong for such an old man.

“They’re coming,” he gasped. I stifled a laugh; it was like something out of a bad movie, but the fear in his eyes could only have been real. He stood up and threw a wad of bills on the counter.

“Tell no one I was here,” he said, his voice strained. Before I could say anything, he walked out the door.

I looked at the money he left on the counter – at least two hundred dollars, just from what I could tell at a quick glance. I had to catch him; I could keep my mouth shut for free, he didn’t need to give me a month’s worth of profits for that, especially this close to Christmas.

Even as fast as I ran out the door though, he was gone. I looked up and down the street, and couldn’t see him anywhere. I even ran up to one corner, didn’t see him down that street, and ran back to the other corner. Nothing.

I went back inside and counted the money, which I’d foolishly left on the counter. Thankfully no one had come in during my search, as he’d left a total of three hundred, forty-five dollars to pay for a two-dollar mug of beer. Nice tip…

Roughly a minute after I’d put the cash in my pocket (there was no way I was letting that much money slip into the tax man’s hands), two GI’s came in. They were dressed in civilian clothes, but this is a military town as much as it’s a border town; you can spot a military man a mile away once you’ve been here for a while. They both sat down at the bar and ordered a soda each.

They didn’t say much to me, but they eyed the place much more carefully than a normal customer would. One went to the restroom as soon as I set their drinks down; he returned a few moments later looking a little strange. Disappointed? Relieved? I couldn’t tell.

I couldn’t really get anything from their conversation, either. They talked about Iraq, about UTEP’s football team, about the Dallas Cowboys. It was a little forced, like they were putting up a front, but it was also well practiced. Had I not had such a strange visitor earlier in the night, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. As it was though, my nerves were a little on edge, and I probably paid them more attention than necessary.

They didn’t stay but for the one soda, and left me a two dollar tip. When they were leaving, though, I heard – maybe just my imagination, I won’t deny it – one of them whisper “Not here; he’s probably back already.” Then he grunted something, and they got into their car (a plain civilian make) and took off.

Never saw the GI’s or that stranger again.

I did hear on the news later that night about a homeless man they’d found dead on a park bench downtown though, and it made me think of him. Hope it wasn’t; he seemed like a decent guy. Maybe a little too loose with his cash, but I ain’t complaining.

Want to find out what happens next? Go to http://matthewcory.com/2008/12/13/the-note/.

Coffee

It was warm for a winter day, even in El Paso, where the temperatures were often over fifty degrees in December. The sun was shining brightly, and the soft breeze was cold enough to remind me that it was still winter, whatever the temperature may be

I sat, staring out the window of Denny’s, my usual haunt, looking at the dusting of snow on the mountains and sipping my coffee. For a Saturday afternoon, there was little else I could wish for between the beautiful weather, the gorgeous scenery, and the bottomless cup of absurdly strong coffee. That’s what I thought at that moment, at least, right before she walked in the door.

From her uniform, it was obvious she was a waitress. Between never having seen her in there before, and the cautious look in her eyes, it was also obvious that she was a new employee starting one of her first days on the job. She smiled at me as she walked past to go to the kitchen; dazed, I only stared at her. By the time I got my mouth to form itself into a smile, only the door she’d walked through was there to see it, still swinging gently from her passing.

Even from that brief glance as she walked past, she was fixed firmly in my mind: long, dark hair, tied back in a pony tail that, though beautiful, did her little justice; a warm and slender face, eyes lit brightly from that quick smile; a slight figure with enough curves to be seductive, but still the light frame of a runner or dancer.

She returned through the door, and stood behind the counter, trying to figure out what to do first. As she looked at me, I raised my coffee mug to her, even though it was still half full. She turned to get the coffee pot for a refill, and I quickly downed what was left in my mug, unmindful of the scalding temperature as it scorched my throat.

Now’s your chance, I thought to myself as she poured my coffee. Unfortunately, my mouth was still in excruciating pain from draining the coffee so quickly, and all I could stammer out was something akin to “Mmmph ahhgh glurrrrg.” She laughed, a light and playful laugh that made me smile in spite of myself, probably making me look further as though I were mentally challenged than I already did.

“Are you okay?” she asked. I took a second to make sure my toungue was working properly, thankful that she waited for me to speak.

“Yeah, just … that last cup was a little warm. Are you new?” I asked, though I knew full well that she was; I was simply trying to keep her at my table as long as possible, though I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why.

“Yeah, second day. That obvious?”

“No, just never seen you before. You’re doing good so far.”

“Thanks, but I just came on the clock. Let’s see if I break more dishes today than yesterday before we say anything though.” We both laughed, and I knew I’d be drinking more than my fair share of coffee that day.

And I did. I drank my share, and her share, and your share. And I came in the next day after work and did the same thing, and every day after that. It surprised me; most waitresses would’ve thought I was stalking them, and grown quite leary of me within a couple of days. She was different, and seemed to enjoy my company (for some reason) more and more as time passed.

It was some time later that things changed, as they normally do in spring time. The leaves were turning green, the wind was picking up, the rains were starting, and the temperatures rose higher and higher. I came in one day as I always did, and waited patiently for her to arrive. Much to my disappointment, she didn’t — another waitress came in her spot, an older woman who, though somewhat attractive, was also about as cuddly as steel wool. I drank a single cup of coffee and left, wondering what had happened to the woman I’d grown quite fond of over the period of a few months.

Of course I’d never gotten her phone number, nor did I learn her last name. And why should I? She was a constant; she was always there at the restaurant at a given time, on specific days of the week. Eventually, I found out she’d left for a different job, with better pay and better hours. I was happy for her, though I missed her greatly. I also stopped going to that restaurant as frequently, and my stomach was thankful I’d stopped the constant onslaught of their bitter coffee.

Quite by accident — literally — things changed yet again with the season. As summer brought it’s triple-digit days and nights of monsoon rains, I found myself at a red light one evening in a torrential downpour. I could hardly see the lines in the road, and though initially shocked by the impact, I wasn’t terribly surprised when I got rear-ended. It was not good driving weather, and it was only because I’d run out of (of all things) coffee for the mornings that I’d been out.

Though the accident itself wasn’t much of a surprise, the beautiful, slender face in the car that had hit me was. It was my waitress, and her expression changed from a grimace of fear and regret to a bright smile when she realized who it was she’d run into. Finally, I had the nerve and the chance to find out her phone number, and found many excuses over the next couple of days to call her — an extra fee for this, another ding here that I’d pay for anyways, just wanted to let her know, so on and so forth.

That was two years ago, this summer, and there wasn’t a chance I’d let her get away this time. I invited her out to coffee for the first date, and by the third date we’d decided that we would do much better as husband and wife than as customer and waitress. Now, every morning as we get up for work — of all things, she’d quit her job as a waitress for a job as an auto insurance claims adjuster — I pour her cup of coffee for her, and she tips me with a kiss.

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