Authors: Craig Spivek
I had gone into her closet and found them on a
top shelf. The shoes had been given to her by a director who had felt bad
for casting somebody ten years younger in the lead in a romantic comedy horror
adventure starring Anthony Edwards. She and the director had slept
together repeatedly, and wanting to make good, she ended up being cast in the
movie as the lead actress’s sassy aunty who gets her head bitten off by a giant
armadillo after having sex with a lawyer. It was a half-million for
two weeks work, and it bought her the condo she was now collapsed in. She
had taken the shoes with her onto the set for hiking and walking around.
They were Nike walkers that fit great. She hadn’t worn tennis shoes
since she was a kid, working pizza.
They shot the film in the Redwood Forests
of Central California. She used to wear them when she was on set between
shots. On off days she would go on nature walks and take pictures.
It was so peaceful. They still had some of the dried dirt caked on
from when she had crossed a stream and gotten them soaked-through with mud and
sediment. When she was a kid, not more than ten, her dad and she went upstate
into the meadows and had camped out in the forest. It was the last trip they
took. Afterward. Momma died and Daddy started to hit the bottle, and her.
An image of a giant redwood standing tall
flashed in her mind for a moment. She’d forgotten about that tree.
She came across it during one of her walkabouts. It was in a clearing, a
grassy meadow that had been cleared out by a wildfire and was now just
pastoral. There it was one huge thousand-year-old California Conifer
Redwood.
At least a hundred feet.
Twenty feet around.
Standing tall. She tried
taking pictures of it, but she couldn’t get it all in the lense.
She just stared at it. Lost. Time is crucial.
A movie set is ruled by the clock
. Every second
accounted for. But all of that faded away. Gone. No way to
measure the time. No jerko boyfriend telling her to do shit.
Nowhere to be.
Just her and a huge
tree.
She must have been there for hours.
Or
maybe seconds.
It didn’t matter. She liked the feeling of
having nowhere to go.
She stared at the shoes. I bent down and
sat next to her on the floor. I spoke softly. I put an arm around
her and curled a finger through her hair. An image of a huge tree entered
my mind. I had visited that tree with my family when I was seven or maybe
eight. It always had given me strength. My father marveled at it.
We all did.
Carin put her head into the crook of my
neck. I began to speak. Unsure of what I was saying. “I want
to go on a walk.” I felt strength inside me I never felt before. As
if the visions weren’t just images, or a TV program to watch, they were an
entity unto themselves, demanding my focus and guiding my every step and word.
It was powerful, yet made me feel powerless; I was along for the ride
just as much as I was in control.
The visions weren’t
benign
,
they were active
.
A delivery system in which I was allowed to ride shotgun.
I bent down and put the shoes on her feet
like she was a child. She didn’t resist. I laced them up.
“It’ll be like a nature walk,” I said. I grabbed her up by her
hands and she was on her feet. Wobbly at first, then steady. Carin
liked the way the shoes fit.
Comfy, snug, simple.
She was wearing loose-fitting jeans that had been on her for five days.
A white top covered in stains and pizza grease. She smelled but I
didn’t care. There was a soft gaze to her. There was a Phillies
baseball cap Sidney Lumet had autographed for her on a hat rack near the door.
“Never forget your roots!
luv
Sid.” had been inscribed
under the brim. I placed it on her head. Scrunching down her hair.
She stared at me blankly as I grabbed her house
keys, shoved her out her front door and into the hall. My eyes had a soft
gaze as well.
Powerless as she.
PRAY FOR ME
“They’ll
be here in about an hour,” said Pudgie. Lisa started to cry again as
Pudgie held her hand.
Pudgie, Lisa, and baby Kevin spent the next hour
in silence. Pudgie thought about the situation. For the first time in his life
he felt responsible. He admired Rick and Randi for the beautiful life
they had created. He looked back on the night before and felt shame.
He would make it up to everyone involved, even God, somehow.
He knew that in some whacked-out way, Lisa was right. Rick
and Randi were nuts. Their union would end at some point and baby Kevin’s
world would be shattered. Still, Lisa felt entitled. She honestly
believed she was the one who truly deserved the child, even though she had done
nothing to deserve it. Lisa didn’t see the world in terms of right or
wrong, she saw it in terms of things she had, and things she wanted. She
wanted a career in Hollywood and got it. Now she wanted a baby, and for a
brief while she got that too. Lots of people were like that in Devilcountry.
They either got exactly what they wanted or they self-destructed.
Lisa stared out the window, every now and
then staring back at Kevin in the rear-view mirror. Secretly, she was
very happy. Sitting there, in the middle of nowhere, holding Pudgie’s
hand, Pudgie squeezing it back, feeling like a proud mom, providing shelter
from the elements for her beautiful little boy. They both felt like
vultures, parental vultures, with a baby vulture under their care. The
warmth faded as they noticed Rick’s car pull into the lot. They parked
about a hundred feet away, on the other side of the dirt lot, right near the
exit so if Lisa tried to escape she’d have to go through them. Pudgie
could see the move. Lisa couldn’t. Rick shut his engine down.
For a moment there was silence.
Pudgie watched Rick open his car door,
slowly.
“Stay here,” Pudgie said as he opened his door,
but Lisa didn’t listen. She unbuckled the child and grabbed the car seat.
In one motion she was out of the car with the baby and hurrying it back
to Rick and Randi.
“LISA NO!!
!
STOP!!!!”
screamed Pudgie. But Lisa continued, once again in complete control.
Her life lesson ending, and
herself
, the tragic
protagonist, flawed yet true, emerges victorious. She walked toward
Randi, her “mother and me” class over. She had a script idea about a
single mom who kidnaps a baby to save it from whore-ish parents. She saw
Michelle Williams in the lead
, an
early spring
release…she was ready to get back to the good fight of being a successful
Hollywood screenwriter.
Lisa was past the point of no return.
Pudgie could do nothing. He let go. Dust flew around as the
wind started to pick up. Cars pulled in and out for the breakfast rush.
The hot Saturday sun beat down on all of them. Lisa handed the car
seat over to Randi.
“I’m sorry,” said Lisa, nonchalantly.
“I guess I just got carried away. I hope this isn’t an issue.”
She passed the baby over like it was a borrowed DVD. “He’s a
real angel.”
Randi smiled politely as she grabbed a
hold of the carriage. She looked down at her baby who had been asleep but
was now awake and staring right up at her. She safely and wordlessly
handed the carriage back to Rick. Rick safely took it and walked back to
strap baby Kevin into the backseat. Lisa continued small talk.
Randi stayed silent. She was staring back at Rick.
Making sure he placed her baby safely and properly into the backseat of
their car. She thought about creating an entire line of car carriers with Jesus
decor and bible quotes lacquered on. It could be a kit
parents
buy. She’d write down some ideas on the way home. Rick secured the
baby and closed the door gingerly. He then looked back at Randi and gave
her a thumb’s-up sign. Randi nodded her head. She put her head down
a bit. Her eyes closed. Her face turned away as Lisa jabbered.
Randi spoke a silent prayer to her Lord.
Lord,
thank you so much for bringing my baby back home to me safely, I promise to
deliver your word in exchange for your generosity and grace, and Lord
, please
forgive me for the things about me I cannot
control. It is beyond me, Lord. I know God speaks volumes in silence
while the devil speaks with loud and violent distractions. I know this
Lord but please, pray for me, dear Lord, pray for me as I have to you so that I
may be delivered unto this world and into your loving arms. Please look
over Honey and all of our
flock back
in Florida.
In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.
Lisa was continuing to ramble, “I get these
panic attacks sometimes, and I just can’t be in enclosed spaces, and I didn’t
want to leave the baby alone, obviously. I have a book on child
rearing if you’d like to borr….
”
CRACK!!
Randi punched Lisa hard across the left side of the jaw, landing it
perfectly.
Lisa fell back and was in the dirt. Randi
was on top of her immediately, grabbing her by the back of her head and
slamming it into the gravel. “YOU LIKE THAT BITCH???
Lisa tried to scream but blood had filled up in
the back of her mouth and began to asphyxiate her. Randi punched Lisa
again, this time flat in the nose. Lisa’s
nose-job
shattered. The gentile nose her parents had bought for her when she was
fifteen would now be reset back to its original genetic rudimentation.
Three more punches in quick succession, a left, a right, and another left
turned Lisa’s entire face dark red as blood erupted from every pore.
She looked like a horror movie victim.
Pudgie looked over at Rick who just
stared at the whole thing, aroused. Pudgie needed to intervene but he
knew to approach with caution. He ran forward anyways. Trying to
cover the ground between them in as little time as possible. He should
have walked over there with Lisa but then he’d be near dead. He
knew Randi could kill them both easily. When he heard Lisa begin to
cough and wheeze due to a constricted airway, Pudgie stepped up and ran
double-time. His flip-flops didn’t help things. Randi used her knee
to kick Lisa in her side and now had her by the throat and wasn’t going to let
go. Neither girl spoke. Randi was focused on the kill and Lisa for
the first time was beyond words. Finally Pudgie arrived and pushed Randi
off of Lisa, hard. Randi fell back, yelped and landed on her back.
She was up on her feet immediately and ready to pounce.
“Enough, Randi! That’s enough!”
“Bitch gonna pay!”
“She just did, now back off, Randi, back
off now!” Randi calmed down for the moment.
Dead silence for a second.
The quiet broken by the coughing of Lisa as she spit up the blood that
had backed up into her throat and nose. Her face was covered in dirt,
blood and tears. Her eyes were completely bloodshot with blown
capillaries. Two of her ribs were broken from kneecap shots. Randi
was about to go for round two when Rick piped-in, leaning against the car.
“That’s enough, baby.” Randi heeled. She turned back to Rick,
paused for a moment,
then
walked back to their car to
the passenger side. Her arms sweaty, exposed, rippling with might.
Her hands dirty and bloody with victory. She was completely toned
with less than two-percent body fat. She had on a
halter
top
that exposed her back, which was pure muscle. Her hair had
been pinned up and tightly wound. Randi had dressed for battle. And was
now retreated. She got in the car next to where her baby had been locked
into place. She slammed the door. Pudgie dragged Lisa up as she
began to scream in shock.
Her legs kicking out, unable to
find balance.
“Oh, God...I can’t see, Pudgie, I can’t
see!”
“Just walk, quickly, walk! Try to
steady yourself. Get in the car.” She was like mud, slipping
through his hands, he grabbed her up by the shoulder blades and guided her back
toward the car. He got the passenger door open and laid her into the
seat; he strapped her in as best he could. She struggled a bit.
Still coughing, crying, her breathing modified by the shattered
rib.
Her body in shock, her mind scattered. “What happened,
Pudgie?…What
happened?” There was a bottle of water in
the back seat, he poured it over her face, cleaned her up. The bruises
began to set and her eyes were becoming swollen along with her face. Her
body started to twitch as her blood pressure began to drop. She was
starting to hemorrhage. She had strangulation marks around her neck and a
huge chunk of her hair had been ripped out clean.