Dana
went across the parking lot with Charles. Her stomach hurt.
There was a demon inside.
The
bright lights of the all-night Pump N' Pay partly illuminated
the debris at her feet. Here and there were shaggy mounds of
shredded tobacco leaves, resembling dead and long-rotten pine-cones.
These were the discarded insides of the store's cheap cigars.
They had been dumped out and replaced with Kine Bud and Indo.
For Charles, it was simply a matter of stoop and pick, stoop
and pick.
Ace
came around his counter and stood silently in the entrance of
the store. He watched with his sleepy eyes, gave a slight smile.
He lit a long, cork-tipped cigarette and managed a quick smoky
laugh. "Good to see you, Dana. Go on in the back."
She
didn't speak or stop to nod, but walked dutifully through. In
the small room at the rear, she shut the door and clicked on
the television.
Her
child was bothering her again, crying within her. She hated it,
hated playing its damn comforter. She rubbed at her belly sweetly,
trying to imitate niceness. It was the only way that she knew
to keep from being punished. "There now, Poopy-poo," she cooed
in an awful tone, "please shut the fuck up, darling."
The
television hummed. A weatherman smiled up at her from a dim,
off-color screen. She missed real weather, and snow, and she
realized that she had been out west for far too long. She thought
about her family's old home, the one back on Rural Route 9. That
was all the way up in Portland, before daddy had moved her down
to New Orleans, before her mother had died. Back in California,
Charles had said that he was planning on Philly. It had sounded
good to her, north was north, but she wondered now why she was
still with him. She closed her eyes for a moment, and thought
about the Oregon skies. She wondered if the snows were falling
through the darkness, dusting all the rows of mailboxes with
white. She frowned. The room was too small, too cluttered. She
hated it, hated it!
Outside
the store, Charles and the clerk exchanged crooked, dirty-toothed
smiles. "How you been?" the clerk asked, "I thought you were
heading out?"
A
car pulled in. The sounds of heavy bass drums filled the lot.
"Just
watch. After this one, ok?"
In
the little room, Dana cracked open the door. She watched as Ace
shuffled behind his register. There was loud music coming from
the lot, and a square-faced kid with gold chains stepped into
the store.
"What
up, man? What the low-low? How about one of them Swisher's? Don't
tell me you ain't got!"
Dana
shut the door, the demon in her gut gnawed again. She surrendered
a sharp cry before stifling herself. "Tomorrow... the clinic",
she promised, attempting to appease the pain, to stave it off,
if only for another minute, another instant, or at best, another
day. She reached into her pack, and pulled out another piece
of dirty candy. Was it to blame, making it all worse? She hoped
not, she had been so happy that afternoon, happy to have found
them. She chewed another one of her mushrooms. "Help me" she
said, begging primitive magicks, her throat thick with the taste
of dirt.
Ace's
voice was loud, it rolled across the store, indignant and irritated,"All
we got them in is packs! I don't make the rules! We don't sell
singles! Just accept reality, ok!"
The
music from the Corolla bumped, meaningless, "Boom, Boom! Bling-Bling!
Oh yeah! I'm gonna' take off all my clothes."
The
weatherman on the television was gone. Dana already missed him.
He looked nice, but men like that never talked to her and the
kid outside the door was yelling. "Fuck you, mother-fucker! What
if I don't wanna drop change for a whole pack!" "Bling-bling.
Ching-ching! It's getting hot in here."
"I
WANT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE BOX."
"What?" Dana
asked, startled.
"THE
BOX."
"What?"
"THE
BOX, THE BOX, THE BOX, THE BOX, THE BOX."
The
weather man was in her head. She heard the register open and
close.
"Don't
leave." she said, whispering into her own cupped hands,
The
kid could not hear her, he walked back out onto the concrete
stoop, almost stepped on Charles' hand. Charles looked up, blew
a thick, rising cloud which wafted across the lot.
"I
thought I asked you a question? You see a girl in there, selling
pussy? I always knowed it ain't right, but I be damned if I won't
make a dollar! I been through too much with that whore!" He stood
up then, squared his badly-curved shoulders, drew his lips into
a menacing, rotten grimace. "You ain't seen her?"
The
kid shook his head indecisively, retreated to his car. "I got
nothing for you, man." He pulled out a razor. The guts of another
cigar fell to the dirty blacktop. The music grew louder. "Hit
it, get it, forget it. Bling-Bling! Mad-money cash flow!" "I
ain't seen your ho!" the kid yelled over the music, then disappeared
into his car. "And I don't want to see any ho that would work
for your broke-ass!"
Charles
hunkered onto the stoop, slapped his thick palm angrily on the
concrete. "I don't know about these punk kids! All we need is
white! That's all we need!" He reached into his pocket and pulled
out a vinyl-backed New Testament. "Lord help us and Mama don't
look!" He pulled a page from the front and rolled a wad of heavy
cigar leaves into a tight cigarette.
Inside
the little room at the back of the store, Dana could hear the
tires on the blacktop, the inane music growing louder, and then
fading.
"I
don't have a lot of time." Ace said, pulling her pants down,
pushing her onto the cluttered desk. She turned her face away
from his. Her nose touched the screen of the tiny television.
All at once, she was amazed to find that the weatherman had returned.
"What
the fuck is wrong with you?" Ace asked, getting no reaction.
He gripped her chin and pushed her face forward. She looked at
him with lazy, unfocused eyes, drool on the corners of her lips.
"Have
you ever noticed how the weatherman's teeth are perfect?" she
asked.
Ace
frowned. His teeth were not perfect and his eyes had went from
lustful to cruel. "You know how much trouble I could get into
for this? Every fucking day of my life, selling fucking Philly
blunts and 32 ounce bottles of Old English! But it's a job! And
I still got that goddamn record! All I want is a fucking nut!
Twenty dollars, my mother-fuckin' ass! And you come in here acting
like a bitch!"
She
closed her eyes, tried to block him out. "I have a magic box.
God gave it to me when my mother died. It's like I won a secret
lottery, and that's why nobody knows." Ace laughed. He pushed
her face closer. Bad breath. A with-tears laugh. "You want to
play games? We can do that, check this out!" He jumped from the
desk and made two waddling steps, his gut bouncing, his pants
bunched at his ankles. He pulled a long coaxial cable from the
top of a filing cabinet and snapped it loudly in his hands. "You
scared of that? Scared of that, huh?"
"Fuck
you." she said, unimpressed.
As
a whip, the cable stung, but she had been hit with much worse,
and she knew the difference between welts and broken bones. It
wasn't until he got it around her neck that she began to cry.
Charles
didn't get the twenty dollars. He settled for a near-full bottle
of Wild Turkey. He didn't have much choice, being innately a
coward, and Ace being corn-fed. "Mama, I didn't do nothin' wrong!" he
whined, wasting no time in getting whiskey-emotional. Dana sat
beside him, dull-faced, wiping away the repetitive rise of blood
from the worst of her injuries.
Inside
the store, Ace slammed his hand onto the counter and pointed
to the street. He didn't want them to stay overly long.
"Them
damn nigger girls are always lyin' on me!" Charles continued, "I
guess they own this street now!" He stopped suddenly, shot an
indignant look, raised his ill-gotten bottle and turned to Dana
with his hot, teary eyes, "And this is the same street that we
growed-up on, now isn't it!" She nodded instinctively, and he
slapped at her arm. "I guess Daddy built that fence post right
over there, and that was some twenty-five years past. Imagine
that! And you let it fall down! You just believe anyone over
me, and I'm you own son!" He stopped again, sobbed. Dana nodded,
wiped at her blood. He waved his hands dramatically and took
on a mocking, feminine tone, "I guess I'll just have to go back
home to Mama! This man here, he's a good man, but he says one
thing and he does another! Mama, please give me some money! Mama,
please let me stay home with you! We both getting old now, and
you know the time is right for us to let go of all that's bad
betwixt us!"
"Get
him out of here!" Ace shouted at Dana, scowling from behind his
counter.
***
It
was a warm night for September, the walk out of town was tiring
and unpleasantly sobering.
Charles
had built their lean-to earlier that day, in an open field outside
of Waterloo. They had found a discarded tarpaulin in a nearby
clearing; Charles had dragged it back to the field and had draped
it over the shelter. He had spent most of the afternoon working,
anchoring the whole thing down with rocks while Dana went exploring
and looking for berries. The area was state-owned, and that was
a trick that Charles had picked up in Yosemite, the difference
between a vagrancy charge and camping.
"I
want to get settled, back's hurting again." he grumbled. He stumbling
over the uneven ground and perspired heavily.
Dana
gave a small disapproving moan and rubbed at her belly. "Cramps
are getting worse. I thought ... I thought..."
"Just
shut-up!" Charles interrupted.
"No!
You, shut-up!" she barked back. "It wasn't good back there! I
mean, it wasn't! I don't like being watched, and then that fat-fuck
with his fat-ass belt!" She stopped, touched lightly to her throat
and winced. "You could have asked him to leave, you could have!"
Charles
slowed his pace, obviously bewildered. "What you talking? There
weren't a soul in there after that white-nigger left! I know
cause I was watching!"
She
flinched dramatically, "Oh! So I guess you can't see nothing
now? That weatherman with his silk shirt, and that long leather
coat! I didn't know what to think, but I hate him now because
he thinks he's better! But I know-- I know what he's got! He
got that bed back at home, and his bitch-wife, and his silk shirts!
It's like he can't bleed so wants to see blood!" She spun away
and walked out ahead. Charles struggled to catch up with her,
but could only watch as she began to run.
"She
wrong is what she is!" he cursed to himself, "Wrong as two boys
fucking!"
At
the lean-to, he found her resting on a bundle of dirty rags,
their wardrobe. He hunched-over beside her, and took off his
shoes. "I know why you mad. You mad cause' I didn't get no money.
Well, I know. And it's ok. I guess I'm just sorry. I guess I
am."
She
gave a long, hopeless sigh and rolled onto her side. Listlessly,
she stretched her arm over her head, pulled an oily duffel bag
closer, retrieved her radio. "I'm so tired, man. And you don't
know nothing." She clicked the radio on, the feeble light of
it's glowing dials cast quick, odd shadows up her face. Charles
ran his hands through his wiry, graying hair, and frowned.
"You
are listening to the one and only FX Blues..." the radio announced.
"Jig
music." Charles hissed.
She
jogged the dialŠ "...in today's alternative rock and roll." "Faggots."
"...it
was out of the question, then I went to Trost Family Chiropractic,
an affordable.... "
"...in
spirits, that's Annbriar Winery, in historic downtown Waterloo,
just a block away from the courthou..."
"Just
turn it off, Dana." Charles pleaded, "there ain't nothin' on
that goddamned thing."
"Ok." she
conceded. Charles laid his head back and closed his eyes. How
long had he been with Dana? He couldn't remember. Had they met
in California last year, or had they traveled out there together?
Memories refused to gel, to become linear. Maybe, he thought,
he'd known her for much, much longer. All at once, it seemed
to him that they had been through the same schools, maybe, he
even thought, they had been born together.
"You
knowed my Mama?" he abruptly asked, opening one eye. Dana sat
up, held her knees close to her body.
"No." she
said.
"Oh." Charles
sounded surprised. "Well, if you had knowed her, you'd be smarter
for it, that's for sure. But things aren't always easy though,
for people getting along. I remember them days, how we slaved
in that laundry room, how we never had nothing to show for it.
It was always, 'Boy, go take this bundle to The Grahams', they
up on that Greenville Road, you know that house, don't you, son?'
And I would always say, 'Yes, Mama.' Just like that, no questions.
Off I would go, just like that. So it wasn't ever so easy on
me, Dana, we didn't have no car neither."
Dana
cocked an eye, "You liked them days better?"
Charles
held an old tattered rag in his hand, turned it again and again. "Yeah,
it was better days, simpler. It's like this old rag, it reminds
me of her. She didn't let nothing go to waste, you must know
that about her. She took the collars from every shirt we owned,
turned them. 'If the cuffs gone too frayed on a long shirt, make
a short shirt of it, if a short shirt gets too worn, make a vest.'
That's how she always talked, always teaching. We didn't have
no cup of change to be found ever, but cups of buttons and zippers
and elastic bands. Those were like money to us. I guess so."
Dana
shook her head side to side. "Please shut up. I just had something
I wanted to say to you."
Charles
crossed his arms, appeared dejected. "What?"
"I
been down in them woods today, and I find a magic place. It like
a cave. Now everything is different because I know about something
inside of me. There a baby in there, yeah, it's a demon, but
there's something else, it a box, a magic box."
"Bad." he
said beneath his breath and shook his head in quick jerks. Why
did he bother with her?
"You
are not pregnant, Dana! There ain't a magic box, Dana! You one
crazy lady, Dana!" He could say those things, but he wouldn't.
And why wouldn't he? He reached into the cramped watch-pocket
of his jeans and pulled out a beat-up key chain. The beads were
mostly gone, they had begun falling out the same day that Dana
had glued them. He laughed about that, laughed about how Dana
could always sell. The key chain in his hand was nothing more
than a bit of scrap leather and a dozen plastic beads. For Dana,
it could fetch five dollars, ten even.
"I
made this myself." she would say, "It's real good. I used real
good glue." Charles held onto his gut, his laughter erupting. "Dana!" his
thoughts spun, "Her big, gold eyes! Her gold, crazy eyes! She
sells magic! That's what she does! She even sells it to me!"
"I'm
going to the doctor tomorrow." she said.
It
was late, his bones hurt. He was too tired to argue. "Don't let
them take you away from me." he said.
Dana
did not sleep. Early in the morning, she sat outside the lean-to,
in the tall grass, in a rigid cross-legged posture, her eyes
following the lay-lines of the earth. What had happened in the
back room of the Pump N' Pay went through her mind again, making
her furious. That fat Ace, he had held her down, choked her.
And that weatherman had pranced out of the television screen,
pranced right out with his cruel, perfect teeth flashing and
his rose-colored lips. They had hurt her, humiliated her, they
had taken such joy in doing so. Why did they even bother?
A
sudden horror seized her. She gasped. Nervously, but without
hesitation, she plunged her hand within her own chest. She pushed
aside bone and flesh, and went probing into all the hidden and
invisible places within her own heart. "Is it still there? My
God! Is it?" She hung her head and cursed, "They took it! Bastards!
I will suffer forever because of them!"
But
then the back of her hand brushed against something very novel.
Like so much that was within her, it felt hard and cold, but
it was uniquely square-shaped and inorganic. It was the box.
It was still in her after all. She pulled it open. Her fingertips
crawled across it's smooth interior.
"So
soft!" she gasped. It was like a pheasant-skin sewn with linen
thread, pleasurable enough to bring her to tears. "Everything
is going to be ok." the wind whispered in her ears.
***
Charles
did not accompany Dana to the clinic. So she sat alone in a small,
unused waiting room of the Monroe County Independent Clinic,
away from the other patients. Doctor Hespin had frowned throughout
her examination. He had first called in a nurse who had scrubbed
at Dana's face, hands, and arms with alcohol-drenched towelettes
and anti-microbial soap. While sticking long cotton Q-Tips into
her ears, he had talked of the lab reports and the blood work.
"I
suppose you must know about the hepititus.", he had said, "You
must take better care of yourself! You need to eat properly,
rest, stay clean."
Then
there came more needles and injections, and more blood-theft.
It was after all of these atrocities that they had led her into
the room, which was away from the real room, and had told her
to wait. Alone there, she dully became aware that arrangements
were being made on her behalf, but whether or not these plans
involved a nice economy apartment or a jail cell, she couldn't
be sure. Of course, it didn't really matter, because that morning
she had been given another option. If only she had the courage.
Polly
Lee Hespin was six years old. After school she haunted the clinic
where her father worked, waiting for him to finish for the day
so that they could go home. Her mother had died when she was
two. Sub-nuclear brain cancer. Inoperable. A doctor's young wife.
Such was life.
Dana
smiled as the youngster wandered into the room. The girl was
not shy and went to where Dana sat, and pulled from beneath her
chair, a coloring book.
"What
is that?" Dana asked, running a finger tentatively through the
girl's hair, captivated.
"It's
Cinderella." Polly told her.
"Does
your daddy know that you are in here?"
"I
don't know." Polly said, opening her book. For a moment, Dana
could not speak, a tightness gripped at her throat.
"You
like Cinderella?" she finally asked, "Have you ever heard of
Tinkerbell?"
The
little girl sat at Dana's feet, flipping through the pages of
her book. "Yes."
"You
want to see her?" Dana asked.
That
morning the magic cave had sent out it's call. It spoke to Dana
on a morning breeze. It gave her answers that she didn't want
to hear, advice that she had always known, but had been afraid
to accept. "Put your demon in your box, bury it, forget that
it was ever a part of you. It is the only way that there can
be any change."
It
won't be easy, she had thought, and Charles would be of no use.
Oh how she had dreaded going through it alone! "I know where
Tinkerbell lives." Dana told the child.
***
Dana
quickly led Polly to the outskirts of town. They passed the all-night
Pump N Pay where Fat Ace and The Weatherman stalked their prey.
Down into the wide open fields they went, carefully avoiding
the small lean-to where Charles doubtlessly still sat muttering
about his mother, and about his glorious return to Philadelphia.
She led the child into the low woodlands, and into a deep valley
where the ground became a shallow flow of slow-moving current.
It was there, at the very bottom of that wet place, that Dana
took the child down.
In
the cold darkness , Polly fidgeted and paced in small circles.
She clutched her tiny fists open and close, making tight anxious
wads of her fuzzy white sweater.
"Now,
now," Dana consoled, sweetly stroking Polly's face. "You want
to see where Tinkerbell lives, don't you? So look around, what
do you see?"
Fearfully,
Polly gazed upwards. Long, knife-like stones hung menacingly
overhead. From these, an acidic water continuously dripped since
time untold. The little girl gasped. She ran to a shadowy corner
and cringed. There, she was amazed to find treasures everywhere
that she touched, marveled at the deep greens of amethysts, and
the rich veins of smooth wulfinite and druse.
"It's
a wondermous place, isn't it?" Dana laughed.
"I
go home!" Polly demanded, "Tell my daddy to pick me 'fore dark
or I get a-scared!"
"No,
Polly." Dana whispered, staring from the tops of her eyes. "Look
at what I have, I know that you can see." Dana cupped a warm,
amber light. The child craned her neck forward, strained her
eyes in the darkness. There was movement in Dana's hands, a millipede,
a flatworm, a crayfish, and a very black cricket. "Do you see
it?" Dana asked. The black cricket raised itself upon it's spider-like
legs, held the child's stare. "Do you?"
"Yes!" Polly
answered gleefully, "She is beautiful!"
Dana
smiled, "So now you know, Tinkerbell lives inside of me."
Polly
reached for the light.
"Don't!" Dana
screamed. Her face had changed, had gone black with shadows,
her eyes had turned near-reptilian. She violently pushed the
child away. "You have no idea at all how much I've suffered!
Suffered on account of you!"
Polly
shrieked, the wind roared. "Put your child in the box. Bury it."
"Don't
hurt me!" Polly screamed. She jumped to her feet, ran deeper
into the caverns, into the darkness. Dana chased, but then stopped
abruptly, knowing that pits lay ahead. Polly screamed as she
fell, then went silent.
***
When
Polly awoke, she was confused and lethargic. Her brow was cut
and had bled down the front of her white sweater. This was the
least of her injuries. Deep within her being, there was a terrible
wrong. Her soul ached, her innocence strained, her heart hurt.
With everything that was inside of her, she missed the comfort
of her stipple-quilted blanket with it's pretty, lace edges.
She
had been tricked, and she began to wail.
"Did
you try to make better?" Dana asked, lifting Polly out of the
pit. "Did you ever even try? No. You just cried--Wahh-wahh-wahh!
When you're in a trap, Polly, you got to try to survive."
The
girl looked into the dangerous face which loomed near her, it
was a woman's face, entirely human, but it's eyes burned fiercely
in the darkness. Dana chewed on more of her candy, spit out dirt
that clung to her lips. "I can't imagine what I was thinking,
bringing you here! I can't teach you anything. I guess that I
just didn't want to be alone."
Polly
cringed. She was scared of Dana, but more scared by something
else. Unable to speak for fear, she made small throat noises.
"That
won't do you any good now." Dana said, mocking the child's whimpers, "I
took everything out. Everything! There is nothing left inside
of me anymore. And that means you too!" She paused, listened
to her own voice echo in the cavernous space, then touched lightly
to a craggy, moss-covered stone. "Do you know what this really
is?" she asked, "This is The Wall of Masks. But we don't need
masks anymore, now do we? That's because our faces are tired,
and we don't have anything left to hide anymore. Isn't that right?
Well, isn't it?" she yelled.
The
sound of her voice filled every small space. The air shimmered.
Something small, something which was almost completely forgotten
by all of the world stepped out from behind the stone wall. it
was Dana's Pook, who was also The Pook of All The World. "See
yourself." it said, and held up a tiny silver mirror in his toe-fingered
hand.
The
mirror was bright, and it made Dana's pulse pound in her temples.
In her mind, she could suddenly see herself sitting on a curb
outside of a drugstore with Charles. They were somewhere in Philadelphia.
There were kids coming and going in their Corollas. Charles was
beside her, he was swearing, "nigger this", "faggot that", and "my
mama made patches for all of our jeans." "I'm pregnant." she
was telling people, "I need money for food and medicine or my
baby is going to die." Then she was done, and she was going off
into all the alleys and fucking all the dangerous men; getting
drunk and smoking her throat raw.
"Ching
Ching. Bling-bling!" the homeboy music played throughout the
cave. The Pook smiled at her with real cunning, danced nimbly
in his pointed shoes, bobbed his head. "It's still fun, Dana!
It is!" he sang.
She
felt sick. A dangerous amount of ammonia had accumulated in her
blood, threatening a hepatic coma. With her voice quivering,
she turned to Polly. "You shouldn't be here." she told the little
girl. The Pook continued his dance, and the walls of the cave
shimmered once more. She could no longer be sure of where she
stood, her magic cave had changed, resembling a lobby of a very
dirty theater. "Go!" she yelled at Polly. She was ashamed because
down the hall and on the left, at the age of seventeen and on
the big screen, she was getting peed on. "Dad lost his job at
the shipyard." she tried to explain.
"No
masks, right, Dana?" The Pook corrected, "between us illusionists,
there is no need for excuses. So tell me your heart, tell me
why are you wandering and wandering and wondering and wondering?
What ever is it that you want human-grown Dana?"
The
little Pook who was also Puck, and who was also that Hobgoblin
of ancient nights, and the promiser of different and fantastical
worlds, stood before his dreamer; his conical hat was tilted
low on his head and his thick knuckles knocked together anxiously. "What
do you want!" he said again, his voice growing more demanding.
Dana
glanced at Polly, who stood transfixed and near dead with fright. "What
I want..." she began uncertainly before remembering that she
did, in fact want something and that it was something that was
very near. "What I want...", she repeated, her voice rising with
conviction and sudden eloquence, "is innocence repaid in full!"
The
laughter of unseen black elves and of gnomes and gremlins and
wall-knockers filled the air of the cavern theater. Dana's Pook
grinned, and then took Polly by the hand and turned her to the
mouth of the cavern, "You know, Polly," The Pook whispered into
the child's ear, "long has been the alliance of little girls
and Titania, and you have followed one of your own who has in
turn followed one of my own who has followed one of your own,
who has... yes, like this, and for forever."
"Hamburger." Polly
said, no longer afraid, but hungry.
"Milk
Shake." The Pook replied joyfully, but then once more returned
his attention to Dana. "Human-Grown, you may cry, weep and suffer,
but you shall never have the summer of yesteryear. Fester in
your jealousy if you must, and I shall give you a thousand nights
of delirium as refuge, but for Polly, let this end."
Dana
stiffened.
"PUT
YOUR CHILD IN THE BOX, IN THE BOX, IN THE BOX."
That
was God's word in her head. She had God's box in her heart. It
was not within the power of some pook to deny her her yesterdays;
to utter such blasphemy! Unless, of course, she had been mistaken
all along; that she had never known God's word, and that the
box within her was not of God. All at once the image of the weather
man came to her; he was perfect with blonde hair and a waxy smile,
and it was then that she began to shake. The realization was
crushing, undeniable: She would never sit at the right hand of
God, the Kingdom of Heaven would never be before her. "Will she
wither like the fig tree cursed by Christ?" one of Titania's
Hidden whispered from the shadows. Long had the pooks hidden
beneath the earth, in rebellion, and in defiance of man's celestial
gods, so much did they know of withering and of being crushed.
"Your
misguided resolve means nothing." Dana's Pook announced; twitching
his long pointed tail. "You will never have another Spring Time"
"But
I am The Swan in The Mud Puddle." Dana insisted; her voice growing
visionary, "And you are no better as I see it!" She flicked her
finger and knocked off Puck's cap. "I think you are a Pook past
his prime."
There
was a shuffling within the walls of the cavern, then silence.
Dana's Pook shugged, picked up his cap, rubbed his horned head. "I
concur, we've both seen better days."
Dana
smiled unhappily. "The Devil put his television inside of me,
I thought that I could hear God in the static between the channels.
I thought that if I could just... if I were to simply..." She
stopped, looked at Polly "But now I don't think that I will ever
have the strength to leave this cave."
The
Pook squatted at Dana's feet, made crazy eyes, twitched. "You
should know, Dana, you have always begged to follow any fantasy."
She
turned away from hi. "I don't want to ever talk to you again."
She
pushed the little girl towards the cave's entrance. "Go! You
can do it! You just go, girl! But don't fuck up, because The
Weatherman will keep smiling at you forever. Goddamn his big
chin!"
After
Polly left, Dana began to sob. She had not cried in twelve years.
The wind, and the dirty candy, and the secret places, and The
Oregon Skies, they had given her a plan, but she couldn't dump
out all the shit inside of her, put in the good shit. It really
was all or nothing. And after it was all said and done, she would
be at everyones' mercy again. Polly would go back towards Monroe
County, and before she could make Waterloo, sheriff's deputies,
and search parties, and speleological experts would find her.
They would bring her home, kiss her hot little head. "They will
come and get me too." Dana shuttered, "I'm ok though. I just
wanted to show the kid some special caves."
She
sobbed harder, she could not fool herself. She had done wrong
and she would be terrifically punished. She had caused damage
that she could not undo.
"Poor
Polly. Poor Doctor Hespin. Poor worried friends of family. Poor
concerned citizens." She paused and wiped snot from her nose, "Why
stop there?" she questioned, "Poor Corollas, Poor Crickets, Poor
Rap Stars. Poor Wannabes. Poor Charles. Poor Dead Mamas- -God!
Poor Charles! Keep him warm in his ball-hugging Wranglers, Lord;
bless his hate-filled heart."
'Don't
let them take you away from me.' he had said.
"Sorry
Charlie!" Her litany was over.
She
rolled over. She was awake, but appallingly high and tragically
remorseful. She fetched out her little radio, clicked on it's
small amber light. Her kidneys and liver burned. "I could have
been happy, but for ten long years, I followed The Pook."
Original
Story and Characters Jason Windham 2003 |
MidnightGraffiti.Fiction 