Anthology Complex (31 page)

I'm about half of a block away from the building Silvio lives in when I
see him standing outside with two other people. At first I want to call the
whole thing off and continue driving, but I think of Lynne and her bruises. Her
fucked up psychology.

I park the car, get out and begin to walk towards them. Halfway in
between day and night, I maybe should have came a bit earlier.

"You like hitting women?" Silvio turns around, as do his
friends. "Did she tip over from the first hit because she can barely stand
with that fake foot?" Silvio attempts to talk but I cut him off, "How
do you hit an amputee?"

After I stop talking Silvio replies, "This has nothing to do with
you." I tell him that when Lynne becomes bothersome to me because of his
actions, that it then does indeed have something to do with me. He turns his
back on me, so I give him a shove.

He turns around and takes a good swing. The bruises on Lynne's face were
on her right side, so when he tries to strike with his left arm, I put up my
right arm to block it, and then give him another shove, but unfortunately one
of his punk friends that I hadn't seen before grabs me from behind and Silvio
gets off an even better punch that actually lands this time, but he only swings
once.

As I'm a little bit dazed, the guy who grabbed me throws me on to the
sidewalk and holds me down. Silvio says, "Do you have anything else to
say?" For some reason I start laughing, and as much as I want to stop so I
don't get a kick to the gut, I can't. I actually don't stop laughing until one
of Silvio's friends lifts up his shirt so I can see the reflection of a nearby
light on his gun. Then I shut up completely.

Not a second later I hear a police siren. I don't need to go to jail
tonight, not for this. One of the cops is pointing a gun at Silvio's friend.
The one who had a gun on him. The officer tells him to take out his gun and
place it on the ground, he complies, and as he's doing it, he slowly says
"Fuck."

It turns out the man with the gun was on parole and was more than likely
going right back to prison. My only hope is that he wasn't too close to Silvio,
because if he was, then the blame of his going back to prison will be placed on
me, which will inadvertently be placed on Lynne who will ultimately suffer the
consequences because I am here in her name. Fuck.

The officer slowly walks up to the man with the gun, smiling as he does
it, and says to him, "Told you you'd be coming back." Some kind of
personal thing between the two I guess. The officer then says, as he is heading
back to his car with Silvio's friend in handcuffs, "The rest of you can go
the fuck home and do whatever it is that you do."

I quickly walk towards Lynne's car, and as I drive away, Silvio watches
me. Yeah yeah, fuck you too bitch. Fragments.

Driving down the same street but in the opposite direction is a
detective named Steve Jefferson who now has Dante Mac in custody for possession
of a concealed deadly weapon and violating parole. Steve says to Dante,
"Have fun serving your full sentence and then some."

Steve walks into the police station with Dante and begins processing him
for jail. Steve also makes a call to Frank Mainor and tells him he has Dante
Mac in custody. Mainor tells Ryan and they both rush back to the station to
question him before his lawyer arrives.

Mainor and Ryan attempt to explain how cooperating with them will reduce
the sentence and provide other benefits, but Mac never says a word. It's
nothing he hasn't heard before.

Mac's lawyer shows up and the show is now over. The two cops and the
lawyer exchange frightening words and then part from one another. Ryan says to
Mainor as they are walking out of the station, "One step further away from
catching a ghost."

I drive back to my parents' home and find Lynne. I should just call the
police for her, but somehow I feel that will anger her because she won't do it
herself. She'll probably think I'm risking the well-being of Sarah and David.

She asks me what happened, and I tell her that it would be best if she
just stayed here for a while. I tell her that I may have angered Silvio even
more, and I now realize that you never want to make a sociopath more angry than
they already are because their reactions are unpredictable and unparalleled.

She asks me if I will stay here with her, and I say no. She pauses, and
then says that she can't stay here alone. It's too unfamiliar. That she will
just go to her grandmother's house. I ask her if that's a good idea, that if
Silvio can find her then he will cause trouble. She asks me why I can't just
stay, and I just look at her. I don't have a reason, I just don't want to.

After we talk about it for five minutes she decides to stay at her
grandmother's house instead, claiming she feels too uncomfortable staying here
alone. Is she afraid of something? She doesn't even know that there was a
murder-suicide here. Imagine if she did.

She drives me back to my apartment and then drives to her grandmother's
home, hoping Silvio won't show up there. I really tried to help her. Protect
her. But it wasn't enough. Oh well.

I lay down on my couch to reflect the day's events but it's really just
a task I use as a prelude to falling asleep, the only problem is I can't fall
asleep. Like so many times before I become a victim to a brain with too much
energy left to spare, but this becomes more beneficial than tragic.

Because my apartment is so close to the building stairs, when Mary
begins to walk down them as she groans from the pains of her pregnancy, I can hear
her.

At first the sounds that come from her because she is in labor confuses
me, and when I open my door I see her slowly walking down to the next step
holding on to the railing with a firm grip while she gently holds the bottom of
her belly. The scene is extremely bizarre. Not because of the literal picture I
am seeing, but because she is doing this alone.

I could choose to just watch her, and see if she can get to the hospital
on her own. Maybe she could, I'm not sure how much the pain hurts, but there
are always times in our lives when we have to throw social and psychological
fragments out of the window. Times where we don't have the benefit of picking
and choosing which one we want to use. Which one we want to present to others.

Instead we are left with the instinctive fragments; who we are in the
heat of the moment. Some might argue that these fragments depict who we truly
are. The ones that are not governed by any external influence which in turn
allows it to maintain its integrity.

I run up to her and grab her and put her arm around my shoulder. Tao and
I are idiots for not recognizing that she was pregnant, not gaining weight. The
thing is, Mary is a bit taller than the average woman and is normally very
thin, so she isn't really showing like the average pregnant woman normally
does.

Step by step, we slowly go down each step. Wisdom is much too slow and
much too graceful to catch up with you when you're running.

When we get to the second floor, the front apartment door opens and
someone begins to walk up the stairs. It's Boris, who just like me, is
immediately confused. When he realizes that we need help, he puts her other arm
around his shoulder. I think to myself that this would go by much smoother if
we had a wheelchair.

We get to the parking lot and to her car, and once again I find myself
behind the wheel of another vehicle. There has been too much excitement for one
day.

Boris stays in the back with Mary as I drive to the hospital. The
groaning doesn't get any lower, but it also doesn't get any worse. She tells me
that I have to call her family and gives me her phone, and I tell her that I
will do so after we get her to the doctors. Boris doesn't really talk much,
probably because if he tried we would have a hard time understanding his broken
English.

We get to the hospital and hand her off to the doctors who get busy with
her quickly, and for the moment, Boris and I are on the sidelines. We sit in a
waiting area and don't say much too each other, save a few facial expressions.
I look through Mary's phone and find a contact named Sister who I then call and
tell about what has happened.

After a little bit, a doctor tells us that Mary is only twenty-one weeks
pregnant, which as he explains is a very premature birth. The doctor says they
will be performing a Caesarean section, and that the survival of the baby,
given the degree of prematurity, is entirely up to fate. Not in those words.

After he departs from us, Boris says he cannot stay, that he has an
important appointment. Definitely not in those words. Not even in that grammar.

About ten minutes after he leaves, Mary's sister shows up with another
woman who I later find out is also Mary's sister. I should have fucking left
with Boris.

We go through all the motions and then they leave to go find out more
about their sister. Neither of them had any idea she was pregnant and had even
less of an idea who may have gotten her pregnant, which is to say they pretty
much didn't know anything about anything.

After they leave, I walk to where Joe resides so peacefully. What I
would give to sleep like that. Sure, I've slept, but I haven't really slept
like a baby on my own terms for probably over a decade. Okay, that's a lie,
every once in a while I do sleep like a baby, but it's rare. That is not a
foreshadowing of the baby's tragic death.

I go back to where I had been waiting and the time from the clock begins
to tick again. Mary's sisters are no where to be found. I sit there, in a way
trying to fall asleep, but also trying to stay awake. At the same time I'm
wondering why I don't just leave.

Sometime later Mary's sisters come out and tell me it's all done but the
baby is having complications of his own. It's a he.

They show me the way to where Mary is, and when I finally see her she
looks different. Literally and philosophically. It is reported that there are
about thirty thousand genes in the human body. These are one of the findings
from the Human Genome Project; a project started in 1989 by human beings to try
and understand the makeup of life more clearly. The project itself trying to
understand God and Satan's project. Trying to figure out what they are. I've
had many dreams before where I see God and Satan in a room that is painted with
white walls and they are walking about the room flipping switches on and off.
Some of the switches go up and down, others go left and right, and the
remaining few are actually dials. What they are trying to accomplish, I am not
sure, but it takes them a very long time to get it right.

Mary. After spending fifteen minutes with her after her son has been
born, I notice that she's made a transformation, but to be honest, she had been
making the transformation for as long as I've known her.

It's like a force has come along, a force such as love, and has changed
her. Changed her mathematical formula. Her genetic makeup. The paleomammalian
complex. She's not angry, but she is scared. Scared because she doesn't know
what will happen to her son.

I leave, and I take her car back to the apartment building as she
requests, and her sisters stay with her as her son decides whether he wants to
stay in this world or not. I have to say, it will be a tough decision if he
happens to see what goes on in the inner city.

As I walk into the apartment building and as the Sun is falling, I take
a look at some flowers I haven't seen in a while. I have become so used to them
that I forget they are there. They seem full, complete, but it's a shame their
creator is not here to see them with me. I'm just glad that they are normal. At
least I think they are. It's all very subjective.

I lay down on my couch. Mr. Nosleep is still here, ruining my day. I
turn on the television and find the news channel. A story about a recall.
Something bad with some eggs. Interesting. After a few hours, I finally fall
asleep.