Wicked Messenger by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 23
Becky had an extremely brief respite from the pitiful concerns of the day. The next afternoon, after school, she was compelled to sit in her room and watch TV news. On the encouraging side she found nothing major to add to the gloom that again pervaded her. And on the other hand there was nothing to diminish the accumulated misery. By anyone’s reasonable standards it was a good, nothingish news day. However, Becky was neither anyone nor reasonable. She was a ten year old aspiring actress with a sense of conflict and necessary resolution, and didn’t see the reported daily events as having any sense of a competently written story. There were too many omissions. The stasis following the thunderbolts of the storm was as logical as an acquiescence to the notion of Buddhist beliefs; an anathema to an American Jew or Christian. Something had to happen, and happen quickly.
It did. Becky heard a commotion in the hall, went out and saw medics storming into Grandpa’s room. Chatter from the three commingled with that of Mom and Dad. In its incoherence it perfectly communicated disaster. She entered the room as Grandpa was being put on a stretcher. His face was ashen and he held one hand on his chest. She screamed; “Grandpa!”
He looked toward her and weakly held out his left hand. She clutched it, her eyes wide and her mouth open. He looked into
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her eyes and said; “Don’t worry. I’ll be back.” She watched as they jostled the stretcher down the stairs and into the ambulance. As they sped away, Becky heard the revolting cry of their siren. Mom and Dad entered their car to follow. Becky ran to the car and desperately called to them; “What happened?”
Mom said; “He had a stroke.”
Becky opened the back door, but Mom said; “No. No. You have to stay here and take care of the place.”
Becky shut the door of the moving car and stood still in the driveway as the car faded into the distance. She remained there in the silence and for the first time felt infinitely scared and alone, the world’s ludicrous troubles forgotten. She wasn’t aware of the passage of time until the pall of dusk brought the late day clouds and she felt tiny drops and the chilling wind. Her instinct to remain warm compelled her to go inside.
The empty house was still toasty from the day’s sun. She ignored the first floor and slowly climbed the stairs to the second. She entered Grandpa’s disheveled room and was inundated with the ticking of his Victorian Gothic shelf clock. The resounding clamor methodically emanated from the piece which displayed gold pillars supporting the flat, undecorated top and was protected by two gold lions with nose rings on each side.
The black paint with gilt designs, still at the center, was
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stripped from the top and bottom. This revealed the original red mahogany and the entire structure stood on gold leafed, winged animal feet. She jumped back when it grumbled; and then it chimed seven times.
She sat on the edge of the bed and saw a book. She wondered what Grandpa was thinking about when it happened. The cover leaf gone, she saw the title on the binding; “The Determination of Miracles.” It was authored by Claude Chabrol and there was a marker inserted toward the end. She read from the top of page 312; “’Just as less than fully informed cynicism is most often more naïve than poised passion, dwelling on the humanly perceived inevitable is inherently more flawed than enlightened inexperience.’
Genevieve bristled, her eyes flashed, and she spit out;
‘Rhetoric! Meaningless rhetoric!’
Jean sighed deeply. In a low tone he emphatically said;
‘The trick is to be consciously unconscious, or unconsciously conscious, if you prefer. You can achieve that.’”
Becky closed the book and thought; “Grandpa must have been feeling extremely stressed. ............. And a lot of that is my fault. God, if you make him better I promise that even if I think the world is coming to an end, I won’t say so. I’ll talk about happy stuff instead. ........... And, oh yeah. I’ll be nice to that little nerdy girl nobody likes.”
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She went to her room and turned on the TV, just so there was some sound and the feeling of company in the house. She put on “The Movie Channel,” and watched the original version of
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and found it weirdly magnificent. She fell asleep around the time Kevin McCarthy learned that his was the only body in town that was not yet snatched, apparently finding something relaxing in the commonplace.
At 10PM she woke to another movie, wherein a Brit found that the aliens were dead of microbial infections and the sound of Mom and Dad’s car coming down the driveway. She ran down the stairs, out the front door and saw Mom and Dad exit the car. She froze. Her eyes widened, ready to water the saguaros, and with breaking voice said; “Where’s G-Grand-pa?”
Mom leaned over, put her arms around Becky’s shoulders, held her close and said; “Don’t worry. He’ll be home tomorrow.
They just want to watch him over night.”
Becky thought; “Everyone is telling me not to worry. It seems obvious to me that means there is something worth worrying about. But, I won’t say it. It just upsets everyone.” She had trouble thinking of an appropriate cheerful response and came up with; “I’m so relieved. When I saw you two alone I thought
....... Well, you know what I thought. ....... But, now that’s okay. ........ Kind of. ......... What are they going to watch?”
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Dad said; “His heart, of course.”
Becky blinked her eyes a few times and looked perplexed.
Dad continued; “Don’t worry.”
Becky thought; “There it is again. If I feel like worrying, I’m going to worry.”
Dad went on with; “Grandpa’s feeling well. He’s getting cranky. That’s always a sign of health. He told us to go home and quit fussing over him.”
Becky thought; “Thank you, God. ............... I hope that nerd girl doesn’t want to be real good friends.”
Joshua walked the wide, midtown Manhattan streets in the early morning dawn. It was a half hour after the weatherman’s stated sunrise, but the thick gray cloud configuration just sat there defiantly, obscuring the source of light. The accumulation of tiny, individually ugly and insignificant pellets was rigid, not moving one inch, secure in their huge numbers. Early birds were striding confidently, on their way to office desks, ostensibly where the worms waited.
He felt crankier than usual and wondered why his sun had to burn out. If the **** thing just did its simple job he would be back on Eli without a concern. He made no attempt to dodge the oncoming throngs and brushed by a few, making minimal, but noticeable contact. He wished one would say something surly to
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him, so he could smack them in the face. But, in Money City, no one had the time to interrupt their busy schedules. He managed one disapproving, silent head shake from a grizzled old man who never broke stride.
He decided to go back to his hotel and send e-mails to people he didn’t know, saying that they were ********. They probably were, but didn’t know it. The information could be useful. When he got to his floor he saw a white teenage boy on his knees by his door. He was so engrossed in tagging the door with another swastika after the hotel removed the first, he didn’t hear Joshua’s footsteps on the hall carpet.
Joshua waited until they were five feet apart to say; “Your artistic skills ****.”
The startled kid tried to bolt, but Joshua grabbed one of his arms, then put the other forearm across his neck, and was behind the boy who was dwarfed by the 6’4” Eli. Joshua said;
“Didn’t your mommy teach you any manners?”
“I ain’t got no mommy.”
Joshua didn’t expect that answer. It reminded him of his own life, and now he was the one a bit startled. He slightly loosened his grip and the kid again tried to run, forcing Joshua to again tighten his hold. The kid said; “Hey, man. You’re hurting my neck.”
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“Call a cop, *******. ............... What does this ****
mean?”
“It means you’re a ******* Eli.”
Joshua kicked the kids’ legs out. He then straddled him on the floor. He slapped his face hard, and said; “You know what that symbol really means?”
The kid shrugged and said nothing.
“Come on. Tell me what that really means!” He slapped the kid again.
“I don’t know. Some bad ass rock groups have it on their T-shirts.”
“You’re either lying to me or you’re the dumbest **** I’ve met here.”
“Thanks. Can I go now?”
Joshua pointed his “silver bullet” at the kid’s face. The teenager had no idea that he was presented with any danger and smirked derisively at what he thought to be a lipstick container. Though he had a thousand reasons to, Joshua couldn’t pull the trigger. He pocketed the weapon and answered; “No.
....... Why aren’t you in school? ........ Or prison, or something?”
“I called in sick. I was on my way to the doctor right now.”
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Joshua stood up, letting the boy loose. In disgust he said;
“Just get the **** out of here, man.”
The teenager slowly walked away, looking back with a surly expression on his face. When he reached a distance of twenty feet, he turned and said; “Why don’t YOU get the **** out of here? Me and my family were born here.”
Joshua took one fake step toward the kid, who then ran down the hallway. He entered his room having forgotten about his e-mail plans, sat on the couch and stared at the ceiling.
The Esperanza late day sun was a mirror of its morning glory, un-impinged by any gray casters of doubt. The temperature slowly and consistently had risen all day. Becky didn’t wait for the school bus and ran home as quickly as she could, perspiring through her black and white polka dot dress.
Unaware of and uninterested in the moist marks added to her dress top; she loped up the stairs and went right to Grandpa’s room. He was sitting up in bed, ineffectively trying to render a desert scene on a computer painting program. She said;
“Grandpa!” and went to his side. She looked at his computer, correctly saw what he was trying to do and said; “That’s awful.”
He grimaced, put the laptop to his side, and said; “You would think that after staring at it for an eternity, I’d know what it looked like. I’m going to have to pretend that my
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realistic attempt was actually surrealistic.” He shook his head mock disparagingly, held out his arms and said; “C’mere you.”
Becky threw her arms around his neck, kissed his cheek and said; “You’re all right now?”
Grandpa clucked his tongue and answered; “We always tell each other the truth, right?”
Becky didn’t respond and looked as if someone had punched her stomach.
Grandpa said; “Sorry, I made that sound too ominous, didn’t I?”
Becky perked up and answered his prior question, saying;
“Yes. ...... Well, except for that Wicked Witch of the West trapped in my closet stuff. But that was when I was little and I got this idea from that old Orson Welles radio broadcast about the Martians landing .........”
Grandpa cut her off saying; “You’re babbling again.”
Becky silently smiled.
Grandpa said; “I have no plans on dying, but I’m going to have to take it easy for a while. So, my big girl, you are now going to be primarily responsible for the ‘silver bullet.’
Becky was not sure of what she was hearing. She thought;
“If Grandpa is really going to be all right, why is the change necessary? He’s going to slow down. Right. But, he wasn’t
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exactly a speed demon before the stroke, either.” She tentatively said; “Responsible?”
“Yes, responsible.”
Becky frowned and said; “You hid it somewhere in the desert. No one has found it. So it’s safe. I don’t get it.”
Again she considered the possibility of Grandpa’s health being worse than he had said.
“If the wrong things happen, someone may have to get to it quickly, and that’s not me.”
“All right, well, I suppose you have to show me where it is.”
“It’s not in the desert. I just wanted you to think that.
It’s in the kitchen drawer with the old computer parts.”
“What?”
Grandpa chuckled and said; “Yeah. I decided to hide it in plain sight. That’s where nobody thinks of looking.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You didn’t find it and neither did anyone else.”
Becky got the point, but wasn’t completely convinced of the idea’s soundness. She said; “It won’t take long for you to get there.”
“Yes, it will. I’m not going to be going up and down the stairs for a little while and after that I’ll be going very, very slowly.”
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“Why don’t you tell Mom and Dad about it?”
Grandpa showed some annoyance when he said; “For God’s sake, Becky. If I didn’t know you better I would think that you were still a little girl. You already know about the ‘silver bullet’s existence. They don’t. And I don’t know what they’d do if they did. Something bad might happen.”
Becky sighed deeply.
Grandpa said; “The doctors tell me that aggravation doesn’t help my condition.”
“All right. All right. I’m primarily responsible for the
‘silver bullet.’ ....... For a short while.” She leaned over the bed and hugged him. When she let go she said; “But, you have to do something for me. You have to hang around here a long time.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
Becky left and immediately went to the kitchen and opened the old computer junk drawer. Lying there among the antiquated switches, relays, routers and transformers was the silver two inch canister. It showed some graying from age and dust; and as it looked so inconsequential; she momentarily wondered how it could have been the cause of so much commotion. She also wondered why it was still undisturbed in an area where so many people were near it. She attributed that to good fortune rather than Grandpa’s idea of “hiding in plain sight.” She picked it up, held it to her lips, blew off the dust and then put it in
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her dress pocket. She took it to her room, lay on her bed and tried to think of a better place to keep it.
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