Blackbirds (18 page)

  He sees Harriet sitting on the front bumper of her Oldsmobile, her dark pants made darker by an oval of blood. The butterfly knife sits in her hand, slick and red.

  "Prick hit me in the face," Frankie says, though it sounds more like
Prig hid bee in da vase.

  "With the case, I presume."

  "Dat case is vuckin' heaby."

  "The girl escaped. She stabbed me in the leg with this… flea market knife."

  "Gahdabbit."

  "I'm calling Ingersoll. He's going to want to come here. He'll want to attend to this personally."

  "Gahdabbit!"

  "Let's go before the police arrive."

 

 

 

She knows it's just a dream. It doesn't make it any better. Or easier.

  Louis hangs on a dead oak tree like Jesus on the cross. He's illuminated by a single shaft of moonlight: God's own spotlight on the stage. His outstretched arms play host to a row of crows and blackbirds. One blackbird – a little one with a dab of red at the fore of its wing, like a drop of blood – hops over and clings to his collarbone. It pecks at the electrical tape pressed over his left eye.

  Miriam stands at his feet looking up. She falls to her knees. She doesn't mean to; it's what the dream demands she do. It's like she's lost control. No autonomy at all.

  "I die for your sins," Louis says. In between the words is a throaty chuckle.

  "You're not dead yet," she protests.

  He ignores her comment.

  "The cross. The crux. The horizontal line is the line of man. It's the temporal world, the world of matter and flesh and dirt. Mud, blood, stone, and bone. The vertical line is the divine line. The ascendant. It runs perpendicular to the world of man and is the axis of the otherworldly and unknowable."

  "That's super. I want to wake up now."

  "In a minute. I'm not done talking to you, little lady. The cross is also representative of the crossroads. A juncture of choice. Decisions, decisions. It's time for you to start making some choices, Miriam. It's time to rock out with your cock out. It's time to jam out with your clam out."

  Louis grins. Earthworms play between his rotten teeth.

  "Now I know you're just a manifestation of my own voice," she says, almost laughing. "No divine figure, no future ghost, would use the phrase 'jam out with your clam out.'"

  Even crucified, Louis manages to shrug. "If you say so. Then how do I know so much about crosses? Did you take a comparative religion course that I missed?"

  "Go to hell."

  "Decisions, decisions, Miriam."

  "I have no decisions. I'm fate's hand-puppet."

  "Remember. The cross – the crux, the crossroads – is about sacrifice. Jesus stands at the crossroads, and he chooses not the horizontal line of man but the vertical line of God."

  "This is fascinating, but–"

  The blackbirds and crows take flight. They screech and holler. Wings flap; all she can see is dark shadows fluttering. Talons claw at her eyes, tearing them out –

 

 

 

It's one of those mornings. Sky's just a Vaseline smear of formless clouds – a bright, greasy layer of gray. Doesn't look like rain. Doesn't look like sun. Doesn't look like much at all.

  Miriam's head pounds.

  Tree branch. Bad dreams. A shitty combination.

  The gash across her forehead pulses, but the cut on her cheek where the pistol bit her isn't taking the competition sitting down; it nibbles, like a hungry worm, with her face the apple.

  Plus, her butt-bone still throbs.

  And worst of all, she doesn't have any cigarettes. They were in her bag. A bag that is now God Knows Where. Probably in the hands of that horrible bulldog of a woman.

  Sighing, she thunks her head against the door behind her.

  She doesn't intend for it to be a knock, but that's how it happens. She hears shuffling inside. Louis opens the door, obviously surprised to find a battered girl sitting outside his motor lodge bungalow just past the ass-crack of dawn.

  "Morning," she croaks. Even speaking a single word makes her body hurt.

  "Oh my god," he says. She can see it on his face: a very real look of pain, pain
possibly
worse than what she's experiencing. His large hands reach behind her, and he helps her stand with a gentle lift. Her legs wobble, and for a second she's not sure if she's going to make it – but she fights back dizziness and takes a deep breath.

  "Sorry. I would've brought donuts."

  "What happened?"

  She seriously considers telling him the truth. Something inside her wants to
spray
out of her like popping a raw, red zit. Festering pus.
Pbbtt
. Miriam wants to tell Louis everything: all about her strange ability, how she got it, how she saw him die a death that was coming way too soon, how Ashley isn't her brother, how they almost got killed over a metal suitcase filled to the brim with baggies of crystal meth,
every last horrible nugget of truth.

  But she doesn't.

  She convinces herself that it would only hurt him. It'd be selfish. He doesn't deserve that laid across his shoulders
(doesn't deserve to be crucified for your sins
), and it's not like he'd believe her anyway. She's lied so much already.

  "The boyfriend."
Keep on lying. You go, girl
. "He found me. I didn't think he would, but he's a talented asshole. He found out where I was staying and…"

  She demos her blood-encrusted face like Vanna White showing a prize.

  "Ta-da."

  Louis's jaw sets. It's like a bear trap clanging closed.

  "That sonofabitch.".

  "It's all right. I gave worse than he gave me. I stabbed her – sorry,
him
, my brain maybe got rocked around a bit – I stabbed
him
in the leg with a butterfly knife."

  This actually seems to satisfy him, and she loves him for that.

  "Well. He deserved it. What about your brother?"

  Miriam waves it off. "Worthless shit. Sided with the boyfriend. Done with both."

  "Good for you. You need to come on in here so I can get you cleaned up."

  "I know. Faded black eye. Bloody head. Cut cheek. America's Next Top Model, right?"

 

The faucet runs. Louis has the washcloth wet with tepid water, and he runs it over her forehead. She's amazed at how gentle he is. He's huge. Those hands could crush her skull like it was a beefsteak tomato, and yet his touch is soft and slow – almost intricate, like a painter's. Like this is somehow art to him.

  "You don't suck at this," she says.

  "I'm trying to be careful. You might could use stitches for this cut on your cheek. It's not long, but it's deep."

  "No stitches. Just the Band-Aids will cover me."

  "It might scar."

  She winks. "Scars are sexy."

  "I'm glad you came back."

  "Shouldn't have left in the first place."

  With his teeth, Louis uncaps some generic brand Neosporin, blobs a little on his broad finger, and applies it to her forehead and then her cheek. She enjoys the touch. It's simple and it's intimate. It puts her in a Zen state; it's a mindlessness she embraces.

  It does not embrace her, however. Not easily.

  He's going to die
, a nagging voice reminds.

  She takes a deep breath, and she tells that voice,
I know.

  And it's true. She does know it. This is all one big roller coaster, she thinks. Everybody's buckled in for the ride; no getting off it early. The hills and valleys, the sharp hairpin curves and the long straightaways. The screams. The rush. The terror. The finality as it slows to a finish. Fate designed the experience. Fate's got its hands all over everything.

  But, she thinks, maybe there's something fate
can't
touch. Maybe what's not yet decided is how you think about things, or more important, how you
feel
about them. Maybe fate doesn't control how easily you come to peace. She hopes that's true. Because she wants to find a little bit of peace.

  Louis is going to die in a lighthouse in less than two weeks now.

  She can't stop that. That's where he gets off the ride.

  Maybe, she thinks, that's where she gets off, too. Because the truth is, she doesn't know what designs fate has for her. She's not privy to the map. Miriam can touch others and see how they die, but the same isn't true for herself – her demise remains a mystery. And it will until she meets that end, it seems. She likes to image it'll be a violent death. But now, with Louis's touch, she maybe thinks – or at least hopes – otherwise.

  "I have a favor to ask," she says.

  "Too hard?"

  "Just perfect. You're leaving soon."

  "On a run, yeah."

  "Take me with you."

  He pulls his hand away, surprised.

  "You want to come with me?"

  She nods. "I like you. I want to get away from this. Plus, I might be in danger. From the boyfriend. From the brother. Who knows? You're safe. I like safe."

  Louis smiles as she lies.

  "We hit the road in the morning," he says.

  She kisses him on the chin. It makes her whole face hurt to move like that. It's pain she endures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Nobody knows who Randy Hawkins is, because he is a big old nobody.

  He's certainly not an attractive man: pig's nose, curly red hair, a denim jacket that was in style maybe two decades ago. His shoes are still on, but if one were to see his feet, one would note that they match his nose: pig hooves. They totally look like pig hooves.

  His job isn't notable. Right now he works the meat counter at the Giant supermarket, but that's a pretty recent gig. Last job was as a gas station attendant, and his job before that was as a gas station attendant for a different gas station. Once he thought he could be a rock drummer, but he eventually puzzled out that it really helps to have drums and to know how to play them.

  Maybe it's his attitude? He's mild, despite his habits. Quiet. In his own head, he's the furthest thing from boring, but to everybody else, he's dull as primer paint.

  If he were a bagel, he'd be plain.

  What is it, then, that makes Randy Hawkins special? Special enough to be hung by his hands in a meat locker, dangling next to cold slabs of beef?

  Two things.

  One, it's one of those "habits" mentioned previously.

  Two, it's who he knows.

  See, Randy does meth. Mostly, it's so he can stay up late and watch cartoons or bad movies. One might argue that Randy fears death and sleep to him is a neighbor of death – moreover, sleep wastes life, which only ushers one more swiftly toward death. Really, though, Randy isn't even aware of this fear of his. Besides: who doesn't fear death?

  Problem is, Randy's meth habit – perhaps unconsciously meant to afford him a stay of execution – is only going to get him killed a lot sooner. See, Randy's dealer has been tweaking prices. The cost of crystal meth has ticked up, up, up. Randy's not the type to rock the boat, and he's definitely not the kind of guy to be
proactive
enough to seek out a new dealer…

  …but what if a new dealer sought out Randy?

  This new guy comes along. He says he has product. He says he's ready to sell, and for bargain-basement prices, prices lower than a worm's belly in a wheel rut. This new guy, he's smooth; he's smiling like he's come to wheel and deal. Even though Randy thinks the guy's a bit
too
smiley, like maybe this dude's been using his own product, that's fine. Randy likes low prices.

  Randy stops going to his old dealer and starts hooking up with the new guy.

  And that's where Randy's exceptional nature ends.

  At least, as far as his captors are concerned.

  The door to the meat locker rattles hard, then opens. It startles Randy, and he blows a snot bubble – a bloody one – and almost shits his pants.

  The two people who kicked the crap out of him – the squat woman (who Randy can't help but find a little attractive) and the tall man – enter, but now they've got a third.

  The third man is broad-shouldered, but thin – too thin, like a skeleton used to hang a white suit – and weirder still, he's hair less like a skeleton, too. Bald head given a gleaming spit-shine. No eyebrows. No eye
lashes
. Every part of his skin – which has a faint, unhealthy tan, not chemical but more like the color of spoiled chicken – is smooth, slick, glistening as if oiled.

  "Randy Hawkins," the man says, but his accent definitely isn't From Around Here, especially if "around here" is meant to include, say, the entire North American continent. Maybe the man is German. Or Polish. Or from some other nebulous Eastern European country. Randy Hawkins does not know the term
Eurotrash
, but if he knew it, he'd use it. The man points and asks, "This is him?"

  Randy tries to say something but can't, because his own bloody sock is stuffed in his mouth and sealed there with electrical tape.

  Harriet nods. "I worked him over."

  Ingersoll nods as if admiring a painting. He runs a spidery finger up Randy's jawline, through the crust of blood there, to the ear that's swollen like a cauliflower, and then across the forehead where a number of horizontal hash-marks (made with razor, not pen) line up.

  He lifts Randy's head. Sees the chewed up skin on the back of his neck.