Burning VII - An Afterward for Abe

A hillside plagued with death orchards. The wind never stirs here and birds don't chirp at anytime. There is no day, no evening. There are no porches to swing on and enjoy those afternoons in. Just this cracked and bountiful, only in torment hill side. But there, down by that tree over there.

The lid on a worn yet, cared for, wooden box stood open. Blonde hair falling over the shoulders of the girl gazing into a very bright interior. Eve was crying and smiling at the same time, looking down into that box. In her left hand she held tight an old frayed blue ribbon. With reluctance she placed the ribbon inside the box and lowered the lid so very carefully. She then wrapped a leather belt around it so as to keep it closed. She was alone.

Eve rose to her feet and turned west, towards the darkness - towards him. But there, see, over there. Down the slope a ways a little shack stood all by itself. Not more than a sturdy tent, really.

With her belt bound box and loose blonde - almost white - hair and her peace gate, she made her way down the slope towards hut. David's hut, she knew that.

She paused by a crude and splintery post in the ground just short of being clear of the twisted grove of twisted trees. Her right hand reached up to grasp the post, the sign above to high for her to read: NO TURNING BACK.

Burning VI: The Orchard

We stood now in the copse of death. Rotten things swayed gently in the nonexistant breeze. They weighted down the branches and their toes pointed towards the earth, an earth so stained and corrupted that no dust or motes stirred at my passing footsteps. By then, my footsteps had grown rather heavy. We were approaching the end of another 'day'.

But to stay here was insanity. To stay here under a sick yellow sky - darker now, we had traveled west quite a distance - with sick fruit hanging from dead trees was absolutely not in the picture. While my exhausted mind tried to process the 'solution-to-the-problem', my eyes happened upon Eve.

She had seated herself beneath one of the twisted, thorny, dead, yet violent trees. Her back was leaned against the trunk of this particular tree and I could see the runnels tears had made down her cheeks. Never mind the horror and revolt I felt towards this evil place, those feelings were selfish and childlike when I looked at her. All of these poor souls' pain flooded through her and came out in great sobs and tears as big and pure as the eyes they came from.

I went to her. Without any thought or hesitation, I went to her. I folded her in my arms and I wept with her, I rocked with her. I held her against spasms of pain and sadness that broke against her pale little body like huge waves against massive stone cliffs. I went to her and I held her.

I believe another piece of me died that afternoon, in that plagued land. My tears fell from my cheeks onto Eve's head, and some of them caught in the blue ribbon in her hair. Not my Ruthie's anymore, Eve's - not my Eve, she could never be mine, but perhaps I was hers for just a short time in a much larger life - blue ribbon. I think those tears, the ones that caught and held onto that blue fabric were some of last pieces of me.

The rest of me went later. The part of me I think of when I think of Abe Kastel, that part went later. Just then, in our huddle beneath the hateful tree, Eve was shaking herself loose of me and as she rose to her feet I slumped against the tree truck. I remember I couldn't see well through the tears and all. A blurry image remains in what's left of me: Eve stood under the tree in her pain and sorrow, under an umbrella of the dead and lifted each arm to grasp the toe of the body to her left and the one to her right. She wrapped her slender perfect fingers around the big toe of each and the tears streamed down her face. Her head was tilted back and the sound of unbearable compassion came from her open mouth. Maybe it came to me through my ears, maybe she connected with the me that's left, I don't know.

I don't know how long Eve's cry for the dead - not just the two right here, for all of them - went on. I know my eyes closed and my hands and arms grasped the wooden box I'd carried all this way. All through me, in every pore and cell, Eve's voice resonated on to forever.

Her hand was on my head and my eyes, squeezed shut as they were, opened slowly and my breathing turned from hitches and sobs to deep breaths. "It's okay now," the tears were still wet on her face and down her dress. Almost mechanically, I undid the strap around my box and opened it. I looked into Eve's eyes, for reassurance perhaps, whatever I looked for in those infinite blue eyes I found it.

An empty box lay before me on the ground. Opened wide the top was and Eve knelt down in front of me, she placed her hands gently against my temples again and again I can't be completely sure of what happened next. Maybe what I saw, I saw in the foreground and background around me; maybe what happened all took place in front of my old treasured, loved wooden box.

The bottom of the box seemed to glow. I tried to squint but my eyes stayed open despite my efforts. Then, in the distance past this evil orchard I could see a small hut and the name DAVID assaulted my senses with comfort and wellbeing. Maybe Eve, holding my head, turned me and my sight back to what hung above us, close up. There I saw a sight that rocked me more than anything ever has, or had, or ever will.

There swinging from the branch, a woman. She wore a big smile as her hands gripped the branch and she swung her legs back and forth. On the forward swing small giggles escaped her mouth and her full, beautiful lips. Lips I knew, I knew the silky brown hair flowing like water behind her as she giggled and swung. Delicate feet padded softly to the ground when she let go and the dust from the midsummer drought puffed up around her ankles. I knew those ankles, those knees, that smiling face coming toward me.

"I just love it here, don't you?" she managed somehow through the pure delight on her face.

I looked around at the country side, dotted with houses here and there. The orchard we were in, the tree she had been swinging from weren't doing the greatest - it was the dry season, after all - but they had buds on their branches.

"Yes, dear," I said. "But not nearly as much as I love you," and she giggled again and wrapped her arms around me and nestled her face in that special place in between the jaw and shoulder.

I fumbled in my pocket and brought out my fist closed tight.

"Love..." I took a deep breath, "Will you..." and now, looking back from this place I think in that moment we shared that telepathy that only the truly in love share.

She released a breath of relief and shouted for all the lonely hillside to hear, "YES, YES, YES" and there were tears. We shared the only kind of tears the truly in love can share. She jumped up off me and pulled me to my feet and we danced around under the half-alive trees in the setting sun. Before the world burned.

Our dancing slowed and we held each other. "I don't have no ring," I said.

"Any, Abe, any ring," she giggled into my chest. "And I don't care about rings or fancy dresses. I love you."

"Turn around, turn around for me," and she did, and I tied a blue ribbon in her hair.

"My Ruthie."

We made love on that hillside under those trees, and the sun set - or maybe the lid of the old wooden box - and it was night and dark and lovely. And has been ever since.

Burning V - Trees in the Distance

After the first few days, the hard packed earth with its stony outcroppings – good places to look for edibles – turned into a thin scrim of grass with the silhouettes of trees in the distance. I was getting a little worried. I hadn’t counted the cost of another mouth to feed, or the cost on the soul of a man looking at a girl like Eve and not being able to satisfy the desperation in those eyes.

I did find food, nothing I ever thought I’d eat and thought nothing of now. I got lucky, really, on the third day I came upon two large possums. Plenty of food for the two of us, for now, but like fire wood; you can never have too much. I’d learned how to do things since the beginning of my wanderings. I tried showing Eve how to clean, split, and cook a possum, but she watched in silence. She was always silent. Her eyes squinted at the processes involved with preparing an animal for eating, but that was all. And she did the strangest thing I’d seen – and I’ve seen some strange things.

As I was divvying up the roast possum she placed her hand on my arm. I looked up into those blue eyes and somewhere I knew she was shaking her head, but I saw the communication in the blue.

No, my arm lowered and I rested the meat on the ground. I ate my portion, walking for days and having little food – or rest, for that matter – I was famished. By the time I finished, Eve had lain over on her side and seemed to be resting peacefully. I admit I took a bite or two from her portion of dinner. Forgive me.

I have always counted myself a light sleeper. Another thing I learned in my wanderings, how to sleep with one I open, so to speak. But in the morning, predawn really – maybe, with the sky always yellow it was hard to tell. The body can assimilate routines of ‘day’ and ‘night’ without the aid of a sundial. Eve stood with her back to me, I never heard her rise, furthermore, I never heard a thing. The campsite was bare: the extra opossum meat, the remains of the fire, everything was gone.

A certain despair filled me, the first night we’d – I’d – had good food in days and everything was gone. An anger flared in me and I looked back at Eve, eyes intent for answers. After all, I was supposed to be protecting her and keeping her in this screwed up world and she couldn’t do anything but make me leave all my belongings, refuse to eat and now… now she was playing child’s games, hiding food.

Slowly she turned and faced me, looked right into my eyes, in fact. There, there it was, that blue that was everything, so much wiser and older than the face that housed them. She quirked a smile at me and, again, I knew. Everything was going to be okay and it was time to start moving. I got to my feet, the stiffness in my knees and back worried me in a deep place in my mind, I thought nothing of it then.

Now, about a weeks worth of walking later, the landscape was changing. The trees in the distance filled me with hope. Maybe we could find some fruit ahead. The vision of a bright shiny red apple filled my eyes. Hanging from a branch that the fruit’s weight alone made droop. The end of that branch almost touched the ground. I remember licking my lips.

I believe Eve read my mind, or perhaps she read my body language. Before I could take off in a dead run, full sprint, her delicate pale fingers entwined with mine and held me in my place. The surety that we would get there, to those trees, to whatever lay beyond them – perhaps a sign post, perhaps an odd dagger – under the dark thunderheads. We would get there, Eve would get where she needed to go. I was certain of it.

Maybe, she should have let me run to those trees. Maybe, if her hand had stayed by her side and I dashed across the thin short grass to those trees everything would have been all right.

The sorrow that engulfed me a day later was of the paralyzing kind. Eve hadn’t liked what I had to do for meat. But this, this was so much more. The sorrow I felt paled in comparison to the sorrow I saw in her eyes.

The ‘fruit’ I was so eager to get at was the most horrible thing I believe I’ve ever seen. Please, I beg, protect your soul from a sight such as hung in those trees. Nothing can prepare, or help forget the scarification the sight of that rotten ‘fruit’ produced.

Burning IV - Getting Started

I looked up from the letter at a touch, her touch. My eyes cleared and I saw a few more smudges added to the ones made by the tears in the same way years ago – the only other time I’ve read that letter.

Eve touched my shoulder with the same tenderness she carried with her in all ways. Her other hand came up and wiped the tear from my cheek – producing a clean spot that looked out of place. The last tear that fell, she wiped away all the tears. There’ve been days I spent sobbing like a babe at just the sight of the wooden box. But Eve wiped away all the tears in that one gesture of kindness.

I sniffed my nose and I think I blushed. Sitting up straight, I methodically put the letter back in the old envelope. I picked up the blue ribbon, the one that held my Ruthie’s hair back off her face in the end there. Right up to the end, she wore that ribbon in her hair. I sniffed my nose back again and Eve inclined her head. Automatically, I tied that ribbon with the frayed ends around her baby fine blonde hair, just as I had my Ruthie’s a hundred times – no, a thousand – times before.

“Well,” I let the deep breath I’d been holding out and Eve lowered her hand from my shoulder. “We better get ready,” I said. My feet shuffled, “Did, uh, did you get enough sleep?”

She shook her head slowly up then down. I looked down to finish putting the letter away and… it was gone. I panicked, probably only for a half second, yet it was there, the moment everything inside you seizes up. Before the whole second was done I spotted the corner of one of the folds from the old envelope sticking up out of the wooden box.

Though the journey ahead of us, the one we must make, was daunting for sure, I felt at peace. All of my belongings were back where they should be and the pack seemed lighter still. I did have to leave the big pot I used for stew, that thing (useful as it was) just added too much weight.

The pack hefted on my shoulder I turned to look out at the plagued sky. Eve stood in front of me with a hand on my bag. Her head shook and when I just stood there looking back at her she said, “Not all of it.”

I had to lean forward, her mouth next to my good ear, the right one.

“Not all of it,” she said again. Her voice so gentle I had to strain to hear.

But I did hear what she said and I knew. Her hand came off my pack as it slipped off my shoulder. I opened the bag the entire length of the zipper and started removing things from inside. Clothes were the first to go and then the crude utensils and tools.

I remember it now and I wonder where the hesitation was in my actions. The second thought never occurred to me. What I was doing, needed doing. And then the last two remaining items, I looked to my right, directly into Eve’s blue eyes, my hands on the things in the bag.

In my periphery, I saw that Eve smiled. A big smile that lifted her cheeks, showed her teeth and covered her face. And I knew they were okay, the last two things: my good belt – instead of the hank of rope around my waist, and the box. The box I wouldn’t give up, and Eve was smiling and I knew.

I smiled down at my things, then up at Eve. I looped the belt around the box crossways to hold it closed. I cinched the belt tight around the box and stood. When I looked back towards the opening of my home – no, the cave that used to be home – Eve had her back turned. I put my free arm around her shoulders and we stood there looking out at the desolate expanse. We looked out, not at the valley before us, at the entire sight. We looked all the way to the horizon.

We looked all the way to where the diseased yellow met the charred, roiling thunderheads.

Burning III

I had no idea what time it was. No way to tell, no shadows anymore. My legs shook as I stood, the ground still just as hard as always on my feet. I looked around for Eve, it was always dark in my home (cave) and at first, fright seized me. She was so vulnerable and alone, if she was gone it was my fault. For whatever reason I laid down, it was a poor one. Time had no meaning in this moment, but there she was.

Almost feel silly now, being so scared for her. Many things brought fear into my heart since I left my home; since my Ruthie had gone from me, so long ago. I’d run into a myriad of thugs and even before, when the WTF were herding us along chain link fences topped with razor wire, I’d been face to face with a masked man in full body armor holding an assault rifle. But I was more afraid in those waking moments than I had ever, ever, been.

Automatically I walked over to my pack. An old olive drab duffel bag that sat in the corner never bothered anyone. My brain circuitry had been rewired so that upon waking and before going to sleep I checked my pack. You could never be too careful now.

My heavy clothes, light clothes, and under clothes lay folded and clean on the left side of the pack. The right side housed all the utensils that could fit. The big pot I’d come across some time ago sat on its base by the fire pit. I reached down the center of the pack, my fingers spider-crawling down below the crude clay plate. There it was, my little wooden cigar box. The one with the red lining, the one I’d never burn – no matter how cold and desperate I got.

‘A. & R. K.’ so well engraved in the dark oak that all the years and all the wandering couldn’t wear it away. It had been a wedding present, one we both cherished and one I still do. Unnecessary weight some might say, the box was rather thick, sturdy. But to me this box was the lightness in my step, the thoughts that ignored my back pain. Our wedding rings were in there, our marriage certificate, the deed to our property, the baby book we never got to fill.

A letter rested against the unfinished bottom of the box. A letter I only read once. I was thinking about the way the paper envelope had wrinkles in it, a marker of time passed. And then I was undoing the blue ribbon with frayed ends, the one held my Ruthie’s hair back right there at the end. The glue didn’t hold anymore and when the ribbon was untied the old wrinkled paper opened like a flower.

At the sight of her beautiful penmanship I almost put the blooming envelope back in its place. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and gingerly picked up the letter.

            To my beloved Abe,

From this bed we’ve shared for the better part of thirty years I can see the picture of our wedding night. I can remember every sincere ‘I do’ to come from your lips on that day. I’ve been your bride everyday since, never your wife, always your bride.

I’m so very sorry we never got to see a child of ours grow. I know how you wanted that, so did I.

I’ve come to accept my fate and I won’t bother you with my fears that bubble up from time to time. What will be, will be.

What really scares me is the world I’m leaving you to. Everything really went caput, huh? You’re the strongest, most loving man I’ve ever met. You’re the one I wanted to die with, and I am, here in our bed. That makes me happy, Abe. Know that.

I’m getting sleepy and you’re downstairs fixing some medicine or something for me. So I’ll leave you with this:

I love you, and when my body dies my love for you will continue on, as I know yours for will.

            Yours, in health and in sickness, ‘till death parts us,

                        ‘Your’ Ruthie Kastel

p.s. when you find her let the love we have be for her. I’m sleepy and it’s getting dark here. I love you. R.K.

Burning II - Ruthie, Eve, What's Next

“What name?” I asked, and when she turned those blue eyes down, away from mine, I have to admit that a moment of sorrow came over me. I didn’t know this girl, Eve, from anyone. More than once I’ve run into groups of people that think nothing of using a child as bate. Knives were the most common things now. So I kept my back straight and my eyes on the sidelines whenever I met anyone, anyone.

It’d been a long time since I saw anyone, though. I had to leave the cities when things started getting really bad. The WTF officers, more often than not, became roaming death squads for all intents and purposes. My apartment building got raided once and I fled.

I didn’t know where to go. It wasn’t that long ago that I had a job and a life. I went to church on Sundays. I’d been looking for a wife so I got an apartment in town, close to the bars and the action. And then the cities fell, they were the first to go, and I had no place to go. I wandered for a while and at first, it was January when I left, I remember that. But the weather kept changing. Year after year, drought hit the world over and the pollution from the cities painted the sky a sick yellow color. A warming blanket, the world was burning up. I headed east and south for the most part.

A wooded hill reached for the sky on the side of this valley. This valley, the one I called home. The crevice and cave I called home, more precisely. About halfway up the hillside, I made sure the entrance was well covered; you could never be too sure now.

Now, the wooded hill was a barren slope of rock. Sometimes I wondered how I could survive in place where all the damn plants died. But I did, and for the time being, enough game survived to keep me out of starving’s greedy fingers. I survived, and now – some years later – I stood in the place I called home, feeling the most intense emotion I’d felt since Ruthie died; shortly before I moved down here.

By the time Ruthie died, the entire process from moment of death became business of the WTF. No funerals, no viewings, nothing. When you died, you disappeared. No one knew what they did with the dead, the dead just went away, and so did Ruthie. Thinking of her now still brings a tightness to my chest.

I wandered and I landed here. I lived a decent life, by comparison to what I’ve seen. And now this girl, Eve, turned her eyes down, away from mine. The world ended, completely and totally. By comparison to what I’ve seen, those of us that still lived, lived as kings. The dead were treated as gently as a worn out red couch.

“It’s okay,” she said, and it was.

Not even Ruthie had the sway over me. The power that Eve’s blue eyes held. I could see how alone she was. The desperation in her eyes, the time contained in that ocean of blue called to me.

A man once told me that you couldn’t experience life to it’s fullest unless you had the raising of a child. Ruthie and I never had kids. Time hadn’t run out, Ruthie had complications that provided us no children. I didn’t love her any less, and I don’t know, but when I met Eve I understood what that wise, wise man told me once upon a time. Eve needed a protector, the world was cruel before, and now she was all alone. Things weren’t getting any better and now I had a companion. Someone to share this sick landscape with.

She stood before me in all white, her skin so much so that I could see the blue of her veins in her wrists and neck. The white gown she wore held not a speck of dirt. Eve stood before me, immaculate. “What to tell you something,” she said.

Her small white hands reached up towards me and rested lightly on the sides of my temples. Her blue eyes came closer. Blue eyes that held infinity, forever, the whole of everything, the kind you could fall into. And I did, I fell straight into those eyes has her face neared mine.

Her hands around the sides of my head, our noses touched now. The terror that seized me inside that blue made me want to run as far and as fast as I could. But with soft fingers that barely touched my skin and hair, she held me. We knelt together on the hard floor of my home (cave). She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. But I was in those eyes; they closed around me as well.

I wish I had the words to tell you – who ever you are that finds this – exactly what happened. All I can is I’ve never felt anything like what happened in my home that day, kneeling on the hard floor. My body felt rocked and thrown – we never moved, I’m sure of that – and my senses were assaulted: bright flashes, images, pain.

Pain so unbearable I believe I screamed out. Perhaps, I screamed because the blue went away. Blue faded darker and darker. The only light, now, came in flashes and found I could look around. Blue had faded dark, dark like the thunderheads, always in the distance. The only compass now that the skies were sick with yellow all the time. The dark thunderheads lay to the West, always.

The roiling black sky above me let out violent bursts of light and the ground shook – or maybe it was my soul shaking. The dark landscape in front and above me shook more and more. I lost my footing and fell on my back, staring up at the darkness that never stopped moving. Always changing, and I remember seeing things in the darkness.

The shape of a knife formed in the thick clouds above me. I thought maybe I saw the likeness of the face that graced the last dollar bills that floated around in the WTF’s pockets, in the axis of the vertical handle and blade and the horizontal cross member. But, in my fright and pain, I was distracted by the blade, this blade flared out at the bottom, – almost like a spoon - and my terror increased. I tried to close my eyes, my pride is not too big to say that I did try to close my eyes and block all of this out, but I couldn’t.

The odd knife turned into colorless wisps that were taken back into the violent black clouds. And then, a picture of a young girl, dressed in all white. It was Eve, I knew that.

Eve stood all alone next to a sign that pointed somewhere. I couldn’t read the sign, or I can’t remember what it said, but I do remember the way her right hand clutched the post holding the sign up. They were lonely hands. I believe I cried out again, on my knees on the hard floor of my home. I could feel the tears making clean trenches down my cheeks. And then I noticed her left hand, raised in the air, slightly lower than the hand gripping the sign post.

Her empty hand hung there in the empty air, somehow lonelier than the fingers wrapped around the post. And suddenly the picture in front of my eyes, right in front of them, was the palm of Eve’s left hand.

‘ABE’ marked her palm, I saw that clearly – perhaps more clearly than anything else. I knew what needed to be done now.

Since my Ruthie died I never had a purpose. Unless, of course, you count the ‘will to survive’ instinct; but now, in my new, hard, rock home I had a purpose. That purpose was

Eve.

Eve needed me, ‘ABE’, to protect her and get her west. West to the darkness, west to the signpost. And I suppose, I, in turn, needed her. Eve gave me purpose. Eve gave me hope. Without hope we’re just waiting to die.

I raised my head from her gentle embrace and looked back into the depthless blue. Through all the thoughts and questions – and fear, and pain – I looked into those eyes. “So it’s west then,” I said and in spite of myself I chuckled. She smiled back at me.

At that point I knew my future was set. Eve hadn’t said a word, and the darkness in the West hadn’t moved at all. We had a long way to go.

The World Burned

The world burned. There was nothing we could do about it. Pure ‘Darwinism’ took place and I’m just a lucky bastard that falls in the plus or minus tolerance. But the world burned. Even in the last few desperate decades of human existence and ‘western civilization’ and ‘eastern civilization’ and ‘Christianity’ and ‘god’, we tried to please them – I’m as guilty as anyone. We lowered carbon emissions and cut the cord of our dependence on the oil industry. We did everything we could, and still the world burned.

First the ocean rose and states in the U.S., provinces and countries that lay next to an ocean got swallowed up. The United States proposed a World Tragedy Task Force (W.T.F.) to the U.N. and it was approved unanimously. The U.S. of A. officially controlled the world. Of course, the world was shrinking.

That was in the early days. The days when WTF ‘peace officers’ – a joke we all got, but no one laughed – walked the streets with machine guns and body armor and visors that hid the eyes. I never could trust a man that hid his eyes.

All conflict became ‘domestic’ all money became the same. A man – woman’s – face didn’t grace these ‘dollars’. The last thing the ‘people’ voted on: who should be on the dollar bill. The vote was a joke, and I say that nicely. Armed squads of the WTF posted up outside polls and controlled the voting habits one county at a time, one person at a time. No one knew the name of the hideous bust that graced the front currency now.

The world burned anyway. Despite the gangs and the votes and the blind faith and the religions (and the grotesque ‘face’ that graced all currency), the world burned. No one knew much anymore. But there were remnants.

Mostly glass stuff, because glass didn’t burn that well. Neither did bodies, even though the Nazi’s figured it out way back when, bodies didn’t go the way civilization went. They didn’t fall to pieces and fade from the few memories that remained, the bodies stayed. I don’t mean they littered the streets or were heaped up in massive piles on the outskirts of towns – back when there were towns.

I didn’t talk to anyone when there were still people around and about to talk to, but I listened. Most people thought the WTF was loading up the bodies and taking them somewhere. I watched and I didn’t believe, sure the WTF ‘storm troopers’ did a lot of terrible things in those days, but I never saw large trucks or stretchers or anything that looked like body removal operations. Hell, the troops kept their distance, crossing streets or turning on heel when they came upon a body in their way.

I didn’t talk to anyone, but I listened. Disease was the first headline in the collective conscience. Some ‘wrath of god’ thing was popular in America – originated with the AIDS epidemic, now come to fruition. “AIDS was a test,” they’d say. Now god was using fire instead of the flood he’d used back in Noah’s time.

Funny how what used to be trends: hairstyles, brand names, cell phones; traded places with something so drastic: why the world was falling apart. After the ‘wrath of god’ theory faded, people started whispering about other countries, like China or Iran, having a ‘secret weapon’. The tragedy that had befallen the world belonged not to our own lives and actions but those of others. That’s when things got really heated.

Even peaceful countries and nations couldn’t hold back their contempt for ‘those responsible’. Militias popped up all over the world but the WTF was ever stronger, ever bigger. Always in control. At least that’s what they thought. They crumbled, too, along with everything else.

Except this sickly yellow sky and the dark thunderheads in the west that never moved any nearer. I was sitting looking out at this beautiful burned out world, sifting through some things I had collected over the last few days. Trying not to look west, those thunderheads scared me. A man can come to accept many things. The world falling apart – burning out – would be the hardest, you’d think. But those thunderheads, they were worse. They scared me.

“I’m Eve,” a voice sounded behind me and I jumped. You don’t hear many voices now, not many people left.

I turned and looked into a face of pure innocence. The look of a newborn’s first sight of the world, void of all prejudice and judgment, met my look of skepticism and guarded thought. Such blue eyes, so beautiful, in this little girl, I almost wept – but my guard was still up, you can never be too careful.

“As in,” I started to reply in my cracked and broken voice.

She put her finger to her lips, shhhh, “Don’t say his name. Please.”

Darrel: part 3/Lindsey/'Did I Ever Tell You About..."

Only five days after the Christmas party, Lindsey sat on the couch and waited for him to arrive - through the ice and the storm, she didn't care. Big clots of stuffing belched from just about everywhere - really it was surprising anyone could see that the couch was red. Just like Lindsey's hair, fanned out on the couch where her head rested. On her stomach a round mirror lay. The second object of Darrel's affection - though he'd claim the red and black car to his grave over what she offered on the mirror.

She was smiling, almost. The corners of her mouth quirked up slightly, most men found her 'almost' smile seductive. Darrel smiled back, showing a mouthful of unkempt teeth, his hygiene had taken the same route as his football career. "You made it, baby. I knew you could," she said in an amused yet distracted way. "I could feel you coming. Fast and hard. I love that about you."

"You know I love you, Lindsey," Darrel said as he lifted his head from the surface on her midriff.

In one fluid motion she stood and placed the mirror on the table, she had her back to him with her hand outstretched behind her. Darrel was simply amazed, after all, his mind was moving on par with a ferret afflicted with ADHD. Not even in the ballpark of graceful, he took her hand, eager to be led where ever she meant to take him. He loved her with everything, all of it. Every microgram of him yearned for her presence.

In just a few strides they were at a doorway, set below the stairs going up to the bedrooms. A tickling started somewhere deep in Darrel's brain. She could see the hesitation in his jerky body language.

"It's okay, honey," she touched his face. Everything was okay for Darrel at that moment.

"You're right," he stared deep into her eyes. "I love you."

Soon, they descended the steep stairway into the basement. This time she had to grip his hand a little tighter. He heard the creak of the boards. Flashes went off, not just a tickling but flashes. Deep underneath everything else in his poor mind (everything consisting of: Lindsey, the dope, and a distant third, his car). As bright as those flashes were he never show them. Never felt the tickling.

Lindsey led him across the ancient black basement. She paused for a moment and a click illuminated the space - to the extent a naked bulb can in the center of an underground (ancient) room. The corners, just out of reach. And the doorways.

The doorway.

The memory was there. The way she leaned against the two-foot thick rock doorway, just out of the yellow light, yet he could see her. Shadows mostly, but he could see that funny smile of hers, the hair falling over her shoulders, hiding her ears. He could see the elbow propped against the doorway and her crossed ankles. To Darrel the memory hadn't made it to the surface and he was enthralled. Where was she taking him? Why didn't the dirt puff up at all when they stepped?

With the hand not holding his she grabbed a handful of his hair on the back of his head. She stared straight into his. Her eyes, never the same - blue, green, brown (red, ha), acted, for Darrel, like a time machine, taking him back. That night, the creaking stairs, the dirt floor, the awful single light. The shadowed doorway.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was down here when I was fifteen?" she asked and went on as though she knew the answer. "Something happened to me then. I think it was night. You can see it's dark down here all the time."

Their minds were both running on high octane. She continued, "I don't want to talk about it or anything like that. I try not to think about it, but I know you love me and I have to share this with you cuz if you're the one I think you are, I feel you are, you need to know everything about me."

"E-ehhm, mmh," she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Darrel I had a baby four years ago. It was a complicated pregnancy and some things didn't work out very well."

Amazingly, he was able to break in, as mesmerized as he was, "What, wha, what's this place?" jerky movements gave life to each syllable. "What happened?" His eyes were open, wide, he saw her face. The way that half-smile buried itself as fast as it appeared.

"I wanted to show you this."

The eye lock she had on him, it all came back. He could almost see the memories floating from her eyes into his. This time she held his hand and almost dance like spun him around so he was in the room. She stood in the doorway, the room was illuminated by shadows. Lindsey stood facing him, holding - no gripping - his hand, and looked at him and the memories came flooding back.

Despite the memories, the total recall. Darrel wasn't prepared for this. Shock coursed through him. Every part of him. The hairs on his arm stood up, straight up when he turned around.

"I wanted you to see Adam, again,"  she said behind him. He thought maybe she was really smiling, now.

As his mind reeled in horror and tried to forget every millisecond, his eyes recorded. Some part of that overloaded circuit in Darrel's brain wondered where the pale, almost nonexistent, glow came from.

A monstrosity stood before him. A blackened humanoid thing that stood erect and shuffled to his/it's feet. Chains jingled and the shackles that blended in with the skin, though the cuffs around the things right ankle and wrist were smooth, the skin surrounding was wrinkled and darker.

"Yesterday he asked about you," she said behind him. Her voice seeming to come from inside his head, or a hidden surround sound. "He asked where his daddy was."

                                                                artwork by: H.R. Giger

And now Darrel was in a sickly yellow landscape with dark thunderheads on the horizon. He was there, not the basement, he was in this wasteland. A sign stood next to him, 'Cerebrus' the sign denoted. It was shaped like an arrow and pointed off into a distance that never changed. Before him stood his query. More than that, his master. As much as Darrel loved Lindsey, the object - the absolute #1 object, person. Adam - of his total devotion stood before him.

Blackened and withered, Adam looked up at Darrel. Instead of meeting a face like Lindsey's with eyes to fall into, he looked into holes. Holes that went all the way down, and Darrel feared that if he looked far enough into Adam's eyes, he'd see the hell that had been riding with him for the last few months.

Adam managed a smile much like his mother's. A half-smile, an almost smile, really just a quirk of the corners of his mouth. Darrel's face turned into a question mark the way a parents face does when they have no idea why their child is so distraught.

The small quirk of a smile grew wider. Pieces of his cheek fell off and floated on the yellow air like ashes. Broken teeth now showed through the widening smile - smile? part tearing, perhaps. Those familiar with the sound of a brick wall tumbling down, or a high speed car crash. The sound of  'unfortunate' turned to full volume and came out of Adam's mouth. Past the tongue dried and shrunken, past the broken teeth and flaking skin, came the sound of death, and desire.

I'm not complete without you, Daddy. Somehow Darrel's rattled mind heard words in the symphony of chaos. I need help, Daddy. I can't see. Mommy's looked for me, but none seem work out.

Adam gestured behind him and Darrel saw the bodies. They were standing - and swaying slightly - but they looked nowhere. They stood in no particular order, they just bunched around Adam. Darrel thought he recognized some of them. Old Miss Thompson, she died a few months ago. He'd seen pictures of Jack's dad and thought maybe that one over there was Jack's dad. It was hard to tell.

They stood in various states of decomposition. They all stood looking nowhere. They all stood with black sockets where eyes once where.

Darrel looked back at Adam. That odd white ash glow filled and shadowed his grotesque features. Adam's mouth twitched in that odd way - so much like his mother - again. Darrel's priorities shifted drastically. Enough so that he fell back into Lindsey's, mommy's, arms; his eyes never leaving the black - blacker than the skin, if that was possible - gaze of Adam's empty sockets.

"Da-dee," Adam managed and Darrel felt Lindsey's chest rise against his slumped body.

After football went out the window Darrel kind of floated, not knowing or caring, where he went or how he got there (as long as he was having a good time). Lindsey became more important than football ever was. If he ever stopped to wonder why - which he didn't - he knew now. Everything happens for a reason, Darrel knew his reason now.

His boy needed eyes. That's it, just the right pair of eyes and his new son would be complete.

"Da-dee," and Adam extended his left hand. Darrel took it and folded himself around the blackened, shackled... eyeless four year old. He wept on his son's shoulder as he felt flakes, ashes maybe, fall on the back of his bare neck.

Adam smiled from ear to ear.



Darrel: part 2/The Drive/The Dirt Floor

Darrel rolled that ’74 Chevelle down the interstate as if his life depended on it. And who knows, maybe it did? The pale lights reflected off his pale skin. His dark, almost black, hair hung somewhere between his eyebrows and his eyes. The contrast made with is pale skin and hollowed out cheeks was striking. By now people weren’t avoiding making him mad, they were avoiding him. The look in his eyes – Lindsey loves them, there’s that – drove people to the other side of the hallway, side walk, grocery store. He rolled the ’74 Chevelle down the interstate. He drove away from the people that worried about him, some who loved him.

The road was deserted. Nothing stood in the way of the darkness ahead. A freak ice storm had grounded flights, and booked hotels. Vacations were cancelled and in some neighborhoods the heavy crust of ice cancelled electricity. Despite is mother’s slight attempt to make him stay in, just for tonight – in the morning Darrel, please – he rattled the keys in his hand and smiled at her. She didn’t see the skull wearing a dark, almost black, wig. Maggie saw her strong boy. He knows what he’s doing, that was just a surface thought. Underneath, Maggie just wanted to avoid, avoid Darrel. Maybe the world.

His knuckles remained white around the steering wheel. No expression of fear on his face, just that grin. That grin that made people look somewhere else.

His brain looked somewhere else, too. He was in that place he was headed now. Only everything was fuzzy. The bare bulb, that was certain. And the ground, the dirt floor that didn’t give up dust was there. Even the creak of the wooden stairs as she led him down creaked now in his ears. Where is this place? He said to her through a mouth full of honey. She giggled, he remembered that. Then they were crossing this underground place. This place with sharp shadows, the kind that scare children – and if Darrel were completely honest, it scared him a little bit too. But she had her hand stretched out behind her and held his, leading him across this place. The light from the ever still, naked bulb hanging in the large room faded as they approached what looked like a doorway.

Did I ever tell you about…she said.

And now everything is shaking. The sharp light from the bulb turns into the full moon on snow glow of his dash lights. The left half of his car was bouncing along in the gravel and dirt and grass that made up the edge of the median.

If it were possible for Darrel’s fingers to tighten around the steering wheel any more, they did in that minute. The shadows in the hollows of his cheeks grew with his grin. He righted the car on the icy pavement, giving it just the right mixture of throttle and coast. He was rolling down the highway again. Fast and hard, that was Darrel. Heading towards darkness with nothing in his way.

If death were riding shotgun that night, death kept him safe.

Darrel: part 1/Lindsey/Christmas

Darrel arrowed the Chevelle – red with black side lines, rattler hood with chromed out turbocharger, 1974 – down the interstate like a running-back sprinting after a QB hand-off, trying for a fifty yard touch down. None of the other drivers seemed to know where the gas pedal was. An old beat up Chevy puttered along in front of Darrel in the left lane. The high-speed lane. But this guy, this guy in this Chevy, he got the high beams and blurts for the horn. Most driver’s saw how fast he was coming on and got out of his way.

Avoidance had become a national past time. Darrel knew that, he had it figured out. At school he didn’t have to beat people up if he looked at them right. They just curled up in a ball, put their tales between their legs and scurried away. That was a good thing.

In tenth grade he got in one too many fights for the school administration to avoid. He was suspended from the football team until the next year, at least. This was a bad thing; football had been Darrel’s life. But his parents and neighbors seemed to have a good handle on avoidance.

“Darrel, honey. Do you know anything, anything about the Westerson’s mailbox?” his mother would ask, all timid and quivering. Just like the dweebs at school that were doing his homework. “It was… um…” deep breath, come on mom, come on Maggie, deep breath, “it was vandalized last night and, uh, well, we don’t really know who did it.” And there they were, those big puppy dog eyes. Not hopeful for the truth, no, hopeful for the excuse.

Avoid the problem, it will go away. Everything will be okay.

He denied the mailbox, of course, and all the other things that came up until they quit asking him. Lindsey was the first one. The first time they – his mother, Maggie; his dad was mostly a go along to get along kind of guy – asked him about her, about Lindsey. Well, he didn’t really remember. It wasn’t a good thing. They, she, didn’t ask about much of anything anymore.

Now, halfway through his senior year at Sowell West, he got the Chevelle. A Christmas present, and he was proud of himself. Proud that he only had to raise his voice once and slam his door, what… two, three times. His father wanted to buy and old rust bucket and rebuilt it together, some kind of new-age hippie thing bonding thing. They relented about the car about the same time he got kicked off the football team. His father, Doug, came up with a solution; he just bought Darrel the car. Doug successfully avoided just about everything. Merry Christmas.

Of course, Christmas was a week ago and school was letting back in after the weekend. But Darrel was headed to Lindsey’s. The way Lindsey smiled without really smiling. The red of her hair. And her eyes. He wasn’t really sure what he saw that night. A lot of things weren’t clear in his mind. Even less from the battering it took. But some things stood out clear, like Lindsey. Everything about her, mostly her eyes, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Something happened in that basement that night.

Sometimes in dreams he’d come close to it, but even the subconscious ran from that basement. That cold basement, below ground. Surrounded by earth, a bare bulb hanging above. Shining down, not on smooth concrete and not quite shining, the light gave shadows to old rock walls that stayed damp. A dirt floor that didn’t send up dust with each step.

But he turned to look at her and… nothing. When the vehicle of the dream took him as close to that membrane separating everything the human mind collected and nothingness. Blackness.

Her eyes were the most, they drew him and he went. He drove that car like a running-back making the play of his life. Like a man on a mission, determined and set, not to be swayed or stopped. He drove fast and hard to Lindsey. Hard and fast to her, to her eyes.

Darrel arrowed the Chevelle toward that basement as if death were chasing at his heals. Maybe hell was riding shotgun.

Scotty: part 2/What A Party/Lindsey

Over the course of Scotty’s freshman year in high school he and Cindy became like peas in a pod, like baseball and cracker jacks. They spent every moment they could with each other. Most of those moments were spent in her parents’ basement, studying the art of ‘making out’ and ‘smoking grass’. Cindy’s parents worked a lot and like most kids Scotty and Cindy thought that leaving the vent window just above ground level in the basement would clear away any evidence that they’d been doing something bad – and like most parents, Cindy’s weren’t fooled a bit.

A distance grew in the old gang. Jack was on a steady track to the Honor’s Club and graduating early and all that. Tony and Darrel – more Tony, Darrel had an impenetrable self esteem – treated him a little different. Scotty was excited and called them all up after his first ‘make out’ session with Cindy, but the guys weren’t nearly as happy for him as he’d hoped. Tony was the ladies man, not in the kind appreciative gentle way that Scotty was, but Tony was the one with the right lines and the right clothes and everything. Darrel was just ‘King Poo-Bah’. It didn’t take long for the coaches to notice Darrel’s athletic ability, and with jockdom comes girls, girls, girls. It’s almost a commandment. Maybe it was in the way he talked about it, maybe it was the way him and Cindy held hands at school, maybe the look they got in their eyes when they were telling their friends about the other one; for some reason a level of resentment grew between Scotty and Tony and Darrel. Mostly Tony.

Notes were passed with the determination of the U.S. Postal Service. Come hell or high water, Scotty sent doodles and a high schooler’s version of poetry to Cindy almost continually. And she responded with the most flowery compliments and encouragements imaginable. Scotty only wished they had more classes together, every class together.

Christmas break was coming up and Scotty was a nervous wreck. Cindy had mentioned going to stay with her sister up at the college for the break, only coming home for Christmas Eve and leaving Christmas night. His fears were assuaged when she nonchalantly invited him along.

“Oh, no. It’s totally cool. I showed my sister that ring you made me out of a piece of yarn and she thought it was the coolest thing. I didn’t like the patronizing tone, you know how older people can be, right? All, ‘I’ve seen everything’, but anyway she said that’d be fine if you came. Think your mom would let you go?” Amazingly she said that all in one breath. Scotty could hear NOFX blasting in the background. He almost told her that she didn’t need to yell. The radio was much further from the phone mic than her mouth was. But then he thought about her mouth and her beautiful smile – and her full poutty lips, yeah, that too – and he couldn’t say anything but:

“Totally, I’m down. That party we went to at the beginning of the year was awesome,” he hesitated a little. He didn’t want to sound stupid or a dweeb or any of those things Darrel had called him over last six years. “You ah… you think she’ll have… you know?” His heart sank to his shoes, no, lower than his shoes, it rested itself down in the floorboards.

She was laughing. Actually laughing at him.

“Oh, course baby. She’s always got that stuff,” her laughter had stopped and Scotty’s heart was back where it should be. Beating too fast, he could hear her smile through the phone. She was smiling with every bit of kindness and caring and admiration a fifteen year old can manage. “Oh, and guess what?”

“Mmmmm…” he let the silence hang for a few seconds, “There’s peace in the middle east.” It was the best he could come up with. He liked to throw her curve balls sometimes. “That’s all I got. Come on give over, what’s up?”

“My sister’s friend came back into town. She goes to a college in another state, and you know what?” she paused for a breath, amazing, “I heard that what they got there is like a million times better than what goes around here.” Even better. If Scotty had had any doubts he didn’t now.

That odd cigarette at the beginning of the year, the beginning of him and Cindy was so much better than the whiskey they drank that night at the Old Jensen’s place. Scotty had tried to turn Darrel onto it, thought maybe it would mellow him out a little bit – god knew it wouldn’t be a bad thing, perhaps for the whole Sowell West High School – faculty and students included. And Darrel did try it.

Cindy wasn’t as opposed to the outdoors the way Scotty thought she would be. One weekend, Scotty got the gang – except Jack, he had to study and get ready for this really, really big test on Monday. Scotty didn’t get it but he just said, “Alright, dude. See you later.”

“Later,” was all Jack said and the phone was dead. But the rest were on board. The only problem was getting Cindy from her house to somewhere a little closer. She had a bike but the road she lived on, even more ‘back road’ than the one the guys lived on, wasn’t the safest for long rides. And Scotty couldn’t ask her to do that, after all, Scotty was in love.

After much scheming, Scotty was able to talk his mom into picking Cindy up – his mom didn’t like Cindy that much, not to the extent she forbid him to see her, but she kept her quiet reserve – and go along with the camping trip. When they got back to Scotty’s house a conversation ensued between him mother and Cindy that Scotty wasn’t privy too. Cindy had the same lighthearted step about her when she came out of the kitchen so it must not have been that bad. She also had an odd smile on her face.

“Your mother told us too, ‘be careful’,” even whispering she put a sarcastic twist to the final words of her statement.

They made their way up to his bedroom to get the camping gear together. Same sleeping bag he’d had back in the fourth grade. Same oversized backpack – not quite a duffle like Jack’s – filled with the same stuff. The only thing it lacked was the trepidation of their destination.

They weren’t going to the Old Jensen Place and that was good. Surely, Cindy knew the many old stories about the place (who didn’t?) and although their night spent there was uneventful in the ghost and goblin sense, none of them had ever been back there, or even talked about it much.

Tony and Cindy had to set out a little ahead of the rest of them. Cindy didn’t have her bike with her and they had to walk. It wasn’t that far to the bridge and the path to the camping sight, but the other guys would make much better time. Tony carried the packs; hers’ wasn’t that heavy but his oversized one weighed on his shoulders after just a few yards. Yet, they made it to the spot – before anyone of the other guys – the determination of the young and the in love. The excitement of being fifteen, and being with Cindy.

It wasn’t long and Scotty and Darrel rolled up on their bicycles. They had packs of their own. It had been awhile, maybe years, maybe sense the trip to Old Jensen’s Place, since they’d made this trip. This time they’d go left, under the bridge, and to the regular hang out spot.

They didn’t take long setting up the few tents they had – Scotty wasn’t very happy to be sharing a tent with Tony, but it was better than Darrel. He thought he was cool having his own tent, he didn’t understand that was because no one particularly wanted to bunk with him.

By the time the sun went down the camp fire was going and they were toasting marshmallows. None of them knew how to act with a ‘girl’ in their presents. Darrel and Tony did the best they could with their posturing and attempts at humor. But when Cindy pulled one of those odd looking cigarettes out of her purse things got really interesting. Darrel had already passed around the flask, the same one from ‘the trip’. Cindy grabbed a stick out of the fire with a flaming end and lit the ‘reefer’. God, she’s cool, Scotty thought and looked at her with deep eyes, eyes that said forever baby, forever.

Everyone had a good time that night. Good loose talk about the high school going ons and laughter filled the dark with the campfire light. Darrel decided he needed to go for a walk, it wasn’t long and the sounds of retching floated over the totally cool airwaves to the group left around the fire. Not long after Scotty and Cindy retired to their tent to practice the fine art of ‘making out’ before Tony stumbled his way over.

They, Scotty and Cindy, were fast asleep in each other’s arms by the time Tony passed out by the fire and they didn’t see Darrel until the morning. He sat by the remnants of the fire with a poker stick and a pale face.

“Dude, I don’t know what was in that cigarette, but you guys suck big time,” that was all he had to say. The next week or so at school was a bummer. Darrel was having problems with his masculinity, Scotty guessed. Darrel could handle his liquor and beer, hell; he could have handled anything in their freshman year at Sowell West High. He was the grand ‘Poo-Bah’. But he didn’t like the reefer. Not one bit.

But this party, this Christmas party at a college kids place. This was the bee’s knees. Scotty laid every persuasive tactic he had in his arsenal at his mother’s feet. She relented eventually. If it was only going to be for a long weekend. For some reason she thought he would run away are something. He didn’t get it and after the all the reassurances to be careful and good and all that stuff he called Cindy back.

“Think any of your friends wanna come? There’s an empty seat in the car. That jerk she was with is long gone and good riddance.”

He had to think for a moment. Jack was out; he didn’t even need to call. Scotty would love it, but then again he might get them kicked out. The nervousness Scotty felt the day before the first day of high school was back, only this time it was snarling and foaming at the mouth. The only thing that kept him from being out was Cindy. Cindy made everything all right. So he called Darrel. Darrel would go, his parents would let him and he was pretty cool in the eyes of their peers.

“Hey buddy,” Scotty said after Darrel picked up. “You wanna go to a party?” There was hesitation on the line, dead space. “It’s a college party, dude. Girls, booze, come on…” he let the line hang this time.

“Okay, when are we doing this?”

“Ah, Cindy’ll be at my place on Thursday about fiveish. We’ll be at your place around five-thirty I guess.”

“Done deal,” Scotty hung up the phone and floated on cloud nine up to his room and drifted to sleep with dreams of Cindy and a real college party.

Sure enough, Cindy – or her sister, rather – was at Scotty’s house at fiveish and they were picking up Darrel at about five thirty. Darrel was jazzed up. Scotty couldn’t stop thinking about where the night would take him and Cindy. There was a whole world further than ‘making out’ that excited and terrified Scotty to equal amounts.

Everything was dark inside the car. The dash lights were dim and no stars shone. The moon, full or not, didn’t shine on that car, on them that night.

Again, something was being passed around the inside of the car. It was hard to see and Scotty being in the back with his girlfriend couldn’t see anything. But he kept hearing these weird ‘smelling’ sounds. Before he knew it, a wide-eyed Darrel moved way too fast and shoved a flat surface in front of Scotty’s face. Scotty was lost; he didn’t have a clue what to do. There was a straw on what looked like a mirror and Scotty was totally, completely lost as to what he should do next.

“Let me see that,” Cindy released his hand and reached up to the tray of… whatever. She put the straw to her nose and inhaled deeply, took a moment’s pause and offered the tray to Scotty. “Think you could do that?” and the smile that went with that questions blew away any questions Scotty had.

He lifted the tray to his face and did as she did and zang!!!! Pow!!!! Boom!!!

Scotty liked it. And he really liked the party they went to. It lasted for days. His memory wasn’t that clear of those days, but life was good. He knew that, he knew that life was good.

But he noticed Darrel. Everyone noticed Darrel. He did as much of that marching powder as he could, and there was a lot of that at this college party. A certain sadness followed Scotty home and stayed with him… forever perhaps. He never should have called Darrel. He never should have invited him to that party. Lindsey was at that party.

She wasn’t in high school. She was just a little bit older, not much, but a little bit. Darrel’s big frame and outgoing, self confidence (exaggerated by the blow, no doubt) appealed to Lindsey. If they had gone to the same school as Scotty and Cindy did, they’d be just like peas in a pod, baseball and cracker jacks but they didn’t. And maybe that’s what made everything take so long. A slow motion downward spiral.

The rest of Scotty’s high school life was touched by a tinge of sadness. He watched Darrel stay on top, on the surface, on the top. Underneath, Scotty saw the destruction. He liked the blow, too – who wouldn’t – but he didn’t like it that much. Not like Darrel, and he didn’t like Lindsey. Something wasn’t right about her.

Scotty and Darrel and everyone had remarkable features. Darrel was big and strong, Tony was cool and slick and funny, Jack was smart and dedicated, Scotty was… well Scotty was hooked up with Cindy so he must have something. But when Darrel and Lindsey became friends she incessantly complimented the eyes. Everyone of them – off to the side, where no one would hear – were told how beautiful their eyes were. She had some hang up about wishing she had beautiful eyes.

And in a sense, Darrel and Lindsey were like peas in a pod, baseball and cracker jacks. They loved to party and be loud and in your face and on the powder. But Lindsey and the thing with eyes.

The rest of the guys couldn’t say they didn’t feel something wrong with it. Something was bad. A bad moon perhaps, rising on the horizon, far away but oh so close.

Scotty: part 1/What's Her Name/What's It Do To You?

At fifteen, Scotty still listened to the same ‘crap’ as his mother would call it. Kurt Cobain was long dead. So were ‘Punk’ and ‘Grunge’ and all the good indie stuff. 1995 was a good year for music, the whole 90’s music scene – most of it, anyway – had stuck with Scotty. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Hole, Rancid, Operation Ivy, they made up the soundtrack to his early high school life. And, currently, he was jamming to the sounds of the underground. Lars Frederickson and the Bastards filled his ears and vibrated his eardrums through his disc man.

He just laid on his bed, feet tapping and hands strumming like mad – empty as they were. His mother told him to clean his room but Scotty wasn’t interested in that. Scotty had music on the mind and counter culture and rebellion. He couldn’t be really angry with his mother; she was pretty cool most of the time. But he sure was angry with his teachers and his school and pretty much everyone else. They called him things, not the teachers but the kids; the kids called him things, mean things. Some days he could swear everybody else, everybody, was about four feet taller than him. But Scotty didn’t notice any of that – or his messy room – when he had the music. The music made everything all right.

And the girls, too. Scotty liked the girls, almost all of them. Not just the ‘cheerleaders’ or the ‘preppies’. Not just the popular girls that covered their flaws with money. No, Scotty saw ‘pretty’ in the female. Maybe just Julie’s smile, or the color of Cary’s eyes, but girls were pretty. The girls helped but they hurt, too. They weren’t mean like the jocks and the bullies, but when they looked at Scotty, he felt invisible. Freshman year was starting and that didn’t help much. He tried not to show it but he was nervous.

The trip to the old Jensen’s Place had made them – Darrel, and Tony, and Jack, and Scotty – immortal for a while. But things change and hierarchies rearrange and memories fade. The boys would never forget, they shared a bond that night with the fire and the whiskey. Scotty liked the whiskey. They had gotten together and drank a few times sense then but the other guys didn’t seem to get the same peace from it. Maybe in high school there’ll be parties and stuff. And high school was starting tomorrow. They’d be the only ones left that remembered that trip.

The bed was shaking, increasingly more violent. His arms and legs stopped pumping to the beat of the music. Half startled – this wasn’t the first time – he looked at his mom and hit the pause button. She had a look on her face – not for the first time – that Scotty could read to a tee. She wasn’t happy at all. Nope, momma wasn’t happy.

“You haven’t touched your room, Scotty,” hands on hips she glared at him, and she wasn’t finished, “Jack’s on the phone, but I told him you were busy and I come up here and find this!” there was the arms spreading out from the hips.

“I’m sorry, mom. It’s just, with school and all tomorrow, I’m…” he kind of grimaced, “I’m kind of nervous, you know.” And there were the puppy dog eyes. He wasn’t completely avoiding the truth. He was nervous about school tomorrow, but the other half – maybe more than half – of the truth was that he just didn’t want to do it. It didn’t matter much to Scotty if his room was a mess.

His mother’s face softened considerably. Her eye brows descended back down above her eyes, instead of halfway up her forehead and the down turned corners of her mouth adjusted slightly from a mad frown to a sympathetic, worried look. “That’s okay, Scotty,” she said as she exhaled in a sigh. She patted the top of his head to emphasize each word, “I – still – want – your – room –cleaned.”

She turned and left, shutting his door behind her. Right on mom, Scotty thought, you’re the coolest.

He did get off his bed and made a halfhearted attempt to clean his room. Then went downstairs to get the phone and call Jack back.

“Yeah, hi. Is Jack there?” Scotty waited a moment and then Jack picked up.

“Okay, mom, I got it. You can hang up now!” Jack yelled.

“Easy, dude. I’m standing right here, man,” Scotty shifted the phone to his other ear. “Anyway, what’s up man?”

“Ummm. Oh yeah, I gotta tell you. I thought about you first you know. You know how you go on and on talk-” Jack was excited. He was talking faster than Scotty could keep up.

“Slow down, man. What are you talking about?”

Scotty could hear Jack breathing, getting his thoughts together and stop rambling. “Okay, okay, there’s this new girl moved in down the road. She’s really cute. I don’t usually say that about girls, you know I don’t get why you think they’re so great, but this one’s really cute.”

“What’s her name?” Scotty’s interests were peaked.

“I don’t know man. But I thought you’d wanna know. You can ask her tomorrow.” Jack’s mother hollered in the background. “I gotta go man. See you tomorrow.”

“Later,” a smile spread across his lips, “Jacky.” Scotty hung the phone up just when Jack started to say, don’t call me that. Scotty wasn’t mean but he loved getting Jack like that. In fact Scotty got him like that every time they hung up. It was like a ritual, man.

Chuckling to himself, Scotty meandered back to his bedroom. Drifting to sleep with thoughts of this new girl, what she might look like, what kind of music she was into. He never took his headphones off and Nirvana made the soundtrack of his curiosities.

So many, so many girls. Scotty thought he’d be looking for one new girl at school. There were thousands, even the one’s he knew last year looked different. He wondered if they changed their names. Still beautiful, still, all the girls held with each of them, different amounts of the ‘pretty’. So many, so many girls.

Abruptly, his thoughts were interrupted. A very big guy sent him stumbling forward. “Get outta the way, freak!” the big guy shouted after Scotty’s awkward attempt to regain his footing. He did, Scotty did get his footing back, he didn’t fall, but a lot of good it did him. A circle of emptiness had formed around him, the empty space filled with laughter and insults. Scotty put his head down and thought as hard as he could about everything he’d like to say. See that was Scotty’s problem.

He wanted to say things to the bullies, he wanted to say things to Darrel and the teachers and the football players and – even being girls, god’s masterpiece – the cheerleaders, but he never could. He couldn’t endorse the violence and the bullying. He couldn’t become one of ‘them’. So he wanted to say things, but looked down at his sneakers instead and adjusted his book bag.

The laughter died down and the rest of the school kids went back to their routines. By now, Scotty made it to his locker but the combo lock gave him problems, as usual. On the third attempt he got it. But that was after he hauled off and punched his locker, the sound surprised him and he looked around all wide-eyed. There she was, and then the locker opened, other people found their lockers between them and she was gone. Who was that girl? Scotty thought.

Brrrriiinnnngggg!!!!!! The warning bell sounded and Scotty came back to himself. What was first period, again? Oh yeah, math. Great, he hated math and he was all over the place. The first day and he’d already been picked on and then spun right around the other way seeing that girl by his locker. Now he had to put up his lunch and find the math room and the warning bell had already rung.

He had just sat down – first row, right in front of the teacher’s desk – when the ‘beginning of class’ bell sounded. Math class droned by in the same sluggish manner that Scotty had grown used to in Junior High. So did second period. English, his third class of the day, one of his better classes, was his favorite class of the day. Not only was he good at it but he got to sit in the back of the room and she was there. That girl he saw by his locker. Who was that? But she sat across the room. He became extremely aware of what he was wearing and how he was sitting and where his hands were. He’d talked about girls for years with his buddies but he didn’t really know anything about them. For a brief second he was more scared than he’d ever been in his life.

She didn’t notice him. At the same time, the day wasn’t the greatest already, so Scotty just got the homework and replayed songs in his head while he doodled on his notebook. Eternally sighing on the inside and trying to be totally nonchalant on the outside, Scotty rode the rest of the day out in much the same manner. He had gym as last period and got all his homework done.

When he got home his mother asked him the same thing she always did, “How was school honey?” And in turn, he replied,

“Fine.” And went up to his room and his headphones. High School wasn’t so much different than Junior High had been. Same kind of bullies same kind of confusion. Only, maybe more confusion, he couldn’t get that girl out of his head. Her name was Cindy; he remembered that from the roll call. What he didn’t fully understand was the chemical changes going on inside his mind and body. Whirlwinds of undefineable emotions were lurking right below the surface. He was so mad at that older kid for pushing him he could explode and at the same instant Cindy made him feel… well, he wasn’t sure, the only thing he could say about it was that it was quite the opposite form the way he felt thinking about that jerk in the hallway.

The next day came and went without incident. Other than to say that Robert, the bully, reduced his assaults to simply kicking the back of Scotty’s shoes every morning, but Scotty could take that. And then it was Friday. For Scotty, Friday went by way too fast and lasted much longer than almost everything else in his mind. Camping at the Old Jensen Place was one of those things. One of those things Scotty would remember forever. A lot happened for him on Friday.

Everything started out normal. The bus ride was solitary and silent – and half asleep. In the five minutes before class started when Scotty walked the halls with Jack, Robert, Scotty’s personal bully it seemed, started in on the heels of his shoes. Kicking them whenever they’d come off the ground in a step forward. Only, Scotty wasn’t in the mood. He never really was in mood to be treated like that, but he could tolerate it, most of the time. Today, the conversation between him and Jack ceased immediately – stopped for Scotty, Jack kept on talking, rambling about some new computer thing or what the News Hour had to say.

Maybe it was the way his jaw clenched when his heel was kicked sideways, or maybe it was the frustration he didn’t fully understand surrounding that beautiful girl (they were all beautiful in their own way, but this one…). Maybe Robert’s screwed up parents or whatever had done something to Robert to make his day a bad one; whatever it was Scotty slammed into the brick wall before he knew what happened. He lost his balance and fell/slumped against the wall, dragging his shoulder down the unpainted brick. The pain came from two sources simultaneously, his ankle and his shoulder sent flashing neon, Roman candle signals to his brain.

I’m hurt!

That bastard did it!!

Destroy him!!!

And Scotty was off the ground and his fist connected with Roberts nose in one movement. Robert’s nose exploded and like on Monday there was an empty space surrounding them. For a few seconds that Scotty wouldn’t clearly remember, they were alone in that hallway.

But Scotty was on the move and as much as he never would admit it, the reason he didn’t see clearly what happened in those few moments were the tears welling in his eyes. Now they ran down his cheeks. Not in big rivers and his chest didn’t hitch as if he were sobbing but he was a wreck. He found his first period classroom and took his seat. The lights were still off, that’s how he knew the ordeal hadn’t been a long one. He folded his arms on his desk and put his head down in them. He’d become one of them, one of the monsters, at the same time he’d stood up for himself. The girls he didn’t see any beauty in would see beauty in this. The guys he thought were jerks, others like Robert, would think he would become one of their numbers. And what would Cindy think?

The warning bell rang and then the final bell. Shuffling feet and dropping book bags brought him out of his own thoughts enough to make it through Math class, and then Biology, and then he got to English.

They didn’t have assigned seats in English and again Scotty was the first one there. He didn’t spend time exchanging pleasantries with anyone, not even Jack or Tony or Darrel. He got the back row, all the way to the outside, by the window.

It wasn’t long before the other kids started filing in. Scotty was writing in his notebook and oblivious of what was going on around him. He didn’t even hear the teacher start up. His favorite class and he just couldn’t get rid of the slimy feel from being violent, from hurting someone. No matter how deserved. Then his chair jumped underneath him. And again.

Scotty pulled his head out of his notebook and looked straight over to his left. Straight into the biggest green eyes he’d ever seen. Straight into Cindy’s eyes. And again a moment, maybe two, just maybe, stretched into a memory forever. A priceless, intangible treasure that couldn’t be bought or sold, or forgotten.

“Hey,” that was all she said. Hey, was all she needed to say. Scotty fell instantly in love.

“Hey,” he said in his best… whatever: tough guy, cool guy, smart guy, ‘Scotty’ guy, voice he could.

Cindy chuckled slightly in her throat and looked down at her paper. “So what about that guy, he had it coming,” she looked back at him. He was still looking at her, he didn’t know for sure if he could stop. It’s really a wonder that he heard her over his heart drumming in his ears.

“Yeah, well…” Scotty didn’t know what to say, he’d never been this confused in his life.

“Here,” she slipped him a folded piece of paper. Of course, he didn’t open it until later when she wasn’t around. Turns out it happened to be one of Scotty’s best days. She had written her phone number on it. Below the number a short note was scrawled: call me before 5! And the dot on the exclamation point was roughly shaped like a heart. Now he definitely didn’t hear anything. His heart was practically beating its way out of his chest; the drumming reverberated through his body to a deafening point.

The rest of the school day went as usual, only now Scotty had forgotten all about the ‘fight’, if you could call it that. All Scotty could think of was the girl. Cindy. And the number. He got home at four and made himself wait until four-thirty to call her. A shaky hand dialed the numbers.

“Yes, hello. Um, is uh, Cindy, um, there?” oh he tried, he tried so hard to pull of the polite young man, calling for this woman’s daughter. A daughter who was perhaps an angel in the flesh, or a goddess.

“Hold on, sweetheart,” presumably Cindy’s mother said. Scotty’s cheeks grew hot at the word ‘sweetheart’. He felt even more like a little kid, silly.

“Hello,” such a musical voice she had, so wonderful, just that one word. Everything she said was like music. Everything was going to be okay as long as he could hear that voice or see those eyes, natures perfect green.

“Hu-hey, how’s it going?” oh, god, he was wrecking big time and he knew it.

“Good. What are you doing later?” she asked so casually.

Scotty was speechless. What was he doing later? What the hell, nothing, he wasn’t doing anything later. He tried to say that and some kind of guttural sound came out that, apparently, Cindy deciphered into ‘nothing’.

“Hey, that’s awesome. I’m going to a party with my sister. She’s in college and she said she’d take me to a party cuz we’re like in high school now. Everyone seems so immature, but you, Scotty, you see the same thing I do.”

Good lord, Scotty didn’t know how to handle this, he just didn’t know what to say. “I… I don’t drive…” totally against his wishes that last word went up so it sounded more like a question.

“Oh, no it’s cool Scotty, my sister’s going to take us… um… I mean, me with her. I think your house is on the way,” her voice changed from lighthearted to unsure. Of course he wanted to go. Maybe she realized how forward she was being. More likely she realized she was talking to ‘Scotty’.

“Us,” he reached, he put all of his bravery into that one word. “For sure. When?”

“Uhhh…” now she wasn’t so sure – Scotty smiled on the inside for that, not to be mean, it was nice to have someone to share this uncomfortable moment with. “Yeah, for sure. How about thirty minutes?” it wasn’t a mistake on her part, she was really asking. That was cool as hell.

“That’d be great,” he said, and then the coolest thing he could think of. “Later.” He hung up the phone in a hurry.

SHE WAS GOING TO BE HERE AT FIVE! Scotty’s mind roared at him. FIVE O’CLOCK!

He rushed upstairs to find his mother. She was at the vanity in the bedroom. Such a perfectly arranged vanity. He told her he was going out with a girl he met at school and his mom told him that was great. Told him that High School wouldn’t be so bad. Well, High School sucked, but going out with Cindy was great.

As soon as her sister’s car pulled up Scotty thought again about what he was wearing and how he was standing. He’d never been this nervous in his life. Cindy reached across the back seat and opened the passenger side door for him. “Come on, she hollered.”

He was thrilled hear the System of a Down coming out of the car’s speakers. The guy in the front seat wore a studded leather jacket and close-cropped Mohawk. They drove for what seemed like forever and then some weird kind of cigarette was being handed to him from the front seat. He’d tried smoking before and his mom’s cigarettes made him sick. But this cigarette smelled sweet, this cigarette smelled different.

Cindy grabbed it and Scotty was glad it was nighttime, his cheeks started warming up. Smoked on it, but she didn’t do it like his mom did. The end glowed brighter and died out, brighter and dimmer. Then, Cindy acted like she was holding her breath and an orange ball was floating in front of Scotty.

At the same time he reached for it Cindy let out a bellowing cough. Scotty was worried but he was filling his lungs from this odd cigarette and started coughing, no choking. Scotty was choking and the interior of the car got bigger and they – all three of them – were laughing. And then he was coughing and then he was laughing. Scotty couldn’t tell his friends that much about the rest of that night. The beer and pot kind of took over for his brain there for a while. He could tell them, everyone from the rooftops, even, about Cindy’s fingers entwining with his and the those beautiful green eyes. The girl that lived down the road from Jack – Jacky, ha ha – had the most beautiful green eyes. Cindy, he’d never known a Cindy before and he wanted to laugh but he didn’t want to be stupid around her. And that was funny, too.

Her eyes weren’t funny, no; her eyes were green, beautiful. Scotty loved those eyes. And the grin he wore, try as he might to look tough, felt just right. Her hand in his felt even better.