Nanowrimo - 20

In the nook of space behind the drivers seat, I'm cradled and rocked off to sleep by the motion of the car as it bumps down the road. The sounds around me drift away as if I’m sinking under the surface of the sea. The water is warm and dark and still. Nothing can get to me down here. No lost thoughts, no memories, no animal visions, no images. I rest in the deep darkness.

How much later, I don't know how long, a terrific howling pulls me from dead slumber. A racket comes from the direction of the front seat. After a minute of confusion I recognize the source. It’s Jack howling along with the radio.

"Beyoncé?" I ask. Pulling myself up to see.

"Good catch! Not bad for an old fart.”

“I’m not so very much older than you, mate.”

“ True, very true. How are you feeling? You went to sleep like a baby after its bottle!"

"I feel ok. At least physically. My body feels great."

"Good, climb up front and lets talk about how we're gonna get out of this mess."

I pile over the passenger seat, getting stuck only briefly when I manage to wedge myself between the seat and the roof of the car, which brings Jack some indelicate moments to laugh at. Finally I land in place and belt myself in, which makes Jack look at me funny until I remind him that driving without a seat belt on invites in the law. With this he fastens his own.

"Is this really such a good idea? Me sitting in front? Aren't they going to be looking for me?"

"Even if someone has discovered your home yet, which I doubt, they're going to be on the hunt for a woman in her 50's." He flips down the visor and opens the mirror. "You're not that woman anymore."

The face staring back at me causes me to catch my breath up short. I had grown so accustomed to the dry, spotting skin, the face that quoted each smile with lines about the eyes and mouth and the silver weaving its way through my hair. So strange to see her face again, young as the day I was married to Fitz, she is, and smooth. My hair is thick again and bright in color. I feel down my body. The parts which had begun to migrate with age are firmly back in their original locations. Jack just grins as I make my discoveries. Suppleness has returned, scars have disappeared. It feels right to be in my own skin, again.

"And to think you wanted to give this up." He grins. I won't award him the satisfaction, of a reply, not yet.

He continues "I've been staying on back roads to avoid places where they photograph the car. Bloody good deal you drive a Prius. We won't have to worry about stopping for gas. But we're going to be nearing Chicago soon, so we have to loose these wheels."

"I'm surprised they aren't already after us."

"Probably no one will notice until she who became your breakfast doesn't come home in the evening."

"Any number of things can happen. A delivery person could come by, or if enough calls get ignored someone might drive over. I don't think I had any appointments today where I'd be missed."

"Whatever it was, the urge knew it was the right day."

"I suppose. It didn't take long to find Jones, though, and he was a shut-in."

"I called 9-1-1." He blurts out the confession as if he were saying 'I have to stop for cigarettes'.

"What?"

"I told you! I called Emergency. As soon as I came down from the high I rang them up and scooted. What's the big deal?"

Just as we were seeming to get along, all the reasons I'm angry with him come flying forward. "How could you have done such a thing to such a sweet man!"

"Stop it. You know how. You did the same thing not three hours ago."

"I saw his body! You had him drawn and quartered and broken like - like I used to watch them torture criminals! It was horrible! Absolutely disgusting and frightening! How could you have done such a horrible, cruel thing?"

"The same way you smashed up your house, woman! I don't even remember doing it! I just remember... I remember how it felt. And I remember how it felt to sense you finding his body. Look, I know how sad it makes you to think about it but he didn't die in pain."

I hold my tongue for a long while. 'Sad' is not the word to describe my feelings. Finally I peel my eyes from the winter landscape and turn to him. "How did he die then? Tell me."

"I'll tell you if you tell me the juicy tale what finally made your resolve slip up."

"Deal. Tell me all of it."

"Alrighty. Just after you left I flew back over there."

"As the Corax? He saw you as the Corax?"

"Yes, now don't interrupt. After you left he remained sitting at that kitchen table for a while, staring off into space. He was looking out at his garden and missing his wife. You could feel it coming through the walls so great was his longing. He couldn't understand why he had been left on Earth so long while everybody else had transitioned on to heaven. He was lonely. So, I flew over to the kitchen window and tapped on the glass. He saw me and came over, talking to me through the glass. 'Hey there old man' he said, 'you come to keep an old fella company?' And he opened the window for me.”

“Hm, Fella… that’s a word he would use.”

"I just hopped in. He brought over the remnants of the soup in his plate and fed me some chicken. He was very sweet, very gentle. He never saw me coming. When he turned to put the dish into he sink I morphed and took him from behind. He felt maybe only a moment's sensation. That's all."

I'm crying and he tries again to console me. "There there! He barely felt a thing. Mummy, I was much gentler than the heart attack heading for."

As much as I hate it I have to credit that discernment. "hmm. all that canned food. You're right. It shits me how mortals are so terrible at keeping themselves alive. Even the nice ones."

"So, your turn now. What happened this morning?"

"Well, I had the urge before I was even awake. I was having this dream that I was a fox, running from the hounds. And when I woke up those pointy little fox teeth were still in my mouth. The urge had me in its grasp and I was struggling for control. It kept dragging me around, down the stairs, toward something. But, I have some ways to control it that usually work. I was using those, or trying to, although it was a battle against my own limbs to do so. I even bit at my own hand."

"How can you RESIST it?" He's incredulous. "Especially after so long? How do you do that?"

"Well, I listen to U2 and eat bacon." After a stunned pause he laughs so hard the car almost goes off the road. "Easy! Easy! Don’t wreck us out here because I don’t plan on drinking any more Midwesterners."

"I’m terribly sorry, please continue" He says with a flutter.

"I managed to get to my iPod and get the music on. After that I started to calm down enough to go fry up some bacon. So, I'm standing in the kitchen, still in my nightgown, which is drenched with sweat from the battle, eating sizzling-hot bacon straight out of the pan, teeth still protruding, when the bitch comes up behind me and startles me."

Jack cannot contain himself for a second. He's beginning to titter. I never realized that this could be so funny. "He he he! You must have been a sight!" he says in a high voice.

"So, I'm all startled, I turn around and realize that she's seen me with the whole fangs and eyes thing going on, not to mention that I've got grease all over my front side and I'm sweating profusely. What could I do? I had to take her down! Bitch deserved it. No one catches me in a moment like that and gets to live!"

We're both in hysterics for minutes.

"That has to be the funniest feed story I have EVER heard! Ahhhh finally! Proof that you're my mom!"

We laugh for a few more minutes, guffawing over Eileen’s pathetic last words on Earth “you have an ipod!” before I have to ask "so, why are you helping me? I thought you were mad at me. I thought you wanted to fight."

He lets out a long sigh. "Oh mummy, anger just makes time go slower. I’ve not spent all of these years chasing you for revenge. That’s so mortal! This was all I wanted!”

He smiles but I catch the faint scent of doubt under his words. He may want to believe what he’s just said, but he doesn’t know he’s not 100% there yet. No matter. We’ve got to much time between us to reconcile for anyone to be 100%, yet.

“So, what’s in that box? You ever going to open it?”

“It’s for Agnoletti. A gift.”

“Why didn’t you give it to him?”

“He refused it.”

“So why don’t you open it for yourself? What you got in there, the holy grail or something?”

“Not mine. Belongs to Zoltan if Agnoletti doesn’t want it.”

“Zoltan.. I know that name.”

“Yes, he lived in Paris. I found my way to him after leaving… after I abandoned you and your father. He trained me. I left him just before he died. He starved himself to death. I tried getting him to feed but, after 2,300 years he decided that he’d seen enough.”

“Zoltan… died? Really?” There’s a note of doubt in his voice. “Have you ever gone back to Paris to check?”

“Need a passport. I got a fake birth certificate and driver’s license, but passports are another story. They get out the proctoscopes when you come calling for one of them. Especially now. And I suppose I got set in my life, didn’t want to move on or face the many challenges that regular reinvention brings on.”

“They don’t chop off people’s heads in the town square, anymore. And to boot it hasn’t been a war zone in years! You’d like Paris, Mum! Hey, I know a fabulous forger in Chicago - top of the line! He can hook you up with a passport in a snap!”

“And if they don’t? We get carted off to jail.”

“And if that happens we’ll solve that problem the same way once borns have always gotten themselves out of tight places… we’ll EAT our way out!”

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh Come on! You’ve let Iowa get into your head! C’mon mum! We only live once!”

I have to hesitate, this could be fun or it could be trouble. But, Jack looks so excited so I concede. “ok!”

“Great!” he grins and drives a little faster.

Winding around on side streets to avoid any intersections that might have lights and, therefore, cameras, we drive to the furthest reach that one of Chicago’s Metra lines sends out into the countryside on spidery legs. We park the car on a residential street and walk to the station, hopping the next train downtown. As the grey, toothy skyline of Chicago rises out of flat land, Jack and I both start to sense it. We are coming to Chicago for more reasons that we originally bargained for.

Somewhere on the south side of Chicago, hiding away in the Robert Taylor homes, sits Artie. Little Artie Jones doesn’t socialize well with the other children. His teachers think it’s because he lives in the projects and his dad was a junkie who deserted the family after selling off everything they owned for dope. His momma figures it’s because of the mistreatment he gets at school. Sometimes she tell him “don’ be so SENSITIVE! Boy you can’ listen to what mess they be talkin’!” Some times she figures that he really just needs a father. It’s just that there’s few father figures to be had. At least where she is and how she sees the world. But on this day, little Artie Jones is hiding out in his room. Late winter sun filters through the dirty window and an acrid smell fills the air. He’s taken the cigarette lighter from his momma’s purse, which he employs in the sinister act of melting the face off of a GI Joe that he has stolen from the toy box at school. Under his bed he conceals the melted, exploded, tortured remains of many purloined action figure. More than a few of these remnants are covered with strange chew marks. Sometimes Artie will wake up with one of the dolls in his hand, looking like dog just ate on it but they don’t have a dog. Sometimes he dreams he’s a wild animal and he wakes up to find the sheets torn up. He hides the torn sheets and steals new ones from the lady next door when she hang hers out to dry.

Artie knows something about him ain’t right like the other kids but he can’t place it. The blame won’t squarely fit on any one source. And today, thirty miles to the south of the Robert Taylor homes, two once-borns approach to collect one of their own.