Black and Orange (4 page)

“We’re already running behind. Let’s just try filling the spare. It’s a slow leak.”

“And maybe be stranded where nobody lives at all? We don’t have any money left for even a truck stop sandwich. If you hadn’t noticed, the Messenger hasn’t left anything yet.”

“Maybe he won’t. Maybe he found new people to be his Nomads.”

“That’s rich. Don’t fool yourself. Nobody would waste such able-bodied slaves. We’ll be used up, like batteries.”

“Now you’re seeing.”

Martin gave Teresa a once over. In the last few months it was clear she’d given up on herself, just as he had. She never wanted to try his herbal remedies, never attempted to do the healing yoga routines and hadn’t quit smoking cloves above all else. He’d begun to gradually turn the concern-dial down to zero. She just didn’t understand. To her it was nonsense; a bunch of rainforest sticks and leaves wouldn’t take away the tumor in her lung. Why quit smoking then? She would succumb with or without his intervention. And she was overdue. Tony Nguyen probably could have attested to that, had he not been devoured last year.

Martin scrubbed his face.

“Stop being that way,” she said.

“Which way?”

“Disparaged. I don’t want to deal with the disparaging Martin today. Not so close to the 31
^st
. Okay?”

“Whatever you say darling.”

“I do have some good news.”

“Oh please, tell me, quick.”

She held up a deformed twenty dollar bill. “Found this at the bottom of my duffel. In my humble opinion, it’s not too early for a drink. That is, if you let me drink and don’t give me any shit. We can try and see if that bar’s open. This should be enough money for a beer, right?”

“For domestic, I’d say its plenty.”

Martin remembered saying that before.
Déjà vu
. But there was something oddly misplaced in the feeling, different than experiencing a recurring sound or setting. The sensation frightened him but he couldn’t say why, not offhand. It did seem though that this
déjà vu
belonged to someone else.

Jarrie’s
Place
had only one customer. Martin could sense Teresa’s disapproval and he made it his goal to head straight for the bar, his eyes never veering. But he had seen. A young woman in a low cut tangerine dress sat alone near the video golf game that all sporting alcoholics seemed to thrive on. The dress was expensive and overflowing with this woman’s endowments, and a shrill warning inside suggested that Martin ignore everything about her.

He hadn’t addressed the honey blonde. So far so good. He brought his elbows up on the scuffed bar and hoped for the best. He and Teresa weren’t married or anything. And could a common law marriage even exist on the road? He was his own person; he wasn’t bound, but knew the real answer. A sign over the bar elaborated:
You can ask for the man in charge. Or you can ask the woman who has all the answers.

He’d read that sign somewhere before.
No, someone else had—
the bizarre feeling of displaced
déjà vu
continued.

A wall of black and red flannel moved toward them from behind the bar. The Paul Bunyan-looking bartender limped a little from going too fast, at first not noticing them coming in. He put his thick hands down on the counter and tried on a weak smile. “So what can I—?”

“
Djarums
?” asked Teresa.

Martin tried to contain his scowl.

The brown beard vibrated. “
Crackles
.”

“How about something with extra tar?” Martin suggested.

“I have a few packs of cloves.” The man opened a large cabinet full of cigarette varieties. Teresa eagerly took the black box from him. He slid over a matchbook.

“Yes, I’m buying them, so don’t ask, Martin.” Teresa tore off the plastic. “Are you going to get on me if I have one?” she asked the bartender.

“No, ma’am. It’s not a problem. Is it a problem for you Mabel?” His eyes pointed over their shoulders to the vixen.

Martin turned around. Not turning would make the whole avoidance seem as fake as it really was. He hadn’t been with another woman for more than ten years. Many romantic bonds had been forged before his and Teresa’s and some
during
as well, but he didn’t like to think about those days anymore. Teresa, on the other hand, must have remembered all of Martin’s other women, from their names down to the shoes they wore. She probably wanted to forget but couldn’t put it out of her mind. Martin just hoped she realized he wasn’t that man anymore.

“Do you want one,
hon
?” Teresa lifted a clove. “They’re quite crackly.”

“No thank you, ma’am,” the woman named Mabel answered. She had a strange cadence to her voice. It wasn’t a neutral sounding Californian accent, but more of an attempt at it.

“What are you two drinking?” The bartender folded up his rag.

“Nothing for me.” Teresa blew out a dragon billow of smoke. She suddenly looked more at ease and more alive. Times like these made Martin think those doctors were full of shit.

“Dark Heineken?” Martin asked.

“We have Newcastle.”

“Sure then.”

Teresa’s dark cigarette crackled like a sparkler. Shadows moved over the bar like restless ghosts. It didn’t feel right. The bartender pushed over a cold, wet bottle of Newcastle with one hand and an ashtray with the other.

“You got sandwiches or something to eat?”

“Only bags of chips,” said the bartender. He halted on the last word, as though chips had been a word he’d had difficulty with at one time, perhaps with a speech impediment.

Martin wiped a bit of beer off his lip. “We’ll take what you have.”

Red-gray ash sprinkled into the pewter tray as Teresa gave her clove cigarette three solemn taps. She stared into the rows of bottles. Martin watched her closely. “You going to Mars again?” he asked.

“Remember the shooting range last week?”

He finished the beer. Softly burped. “Okay.”

“When you were filling out the forms the TV was on. There was a commercial.”

The bartender spotted the empty bottle, pointed at it and Martin hummed an affirmative.

“I thought it was a commercial for a tampon at first.”

“I hate those,” Martin admitted, “so much.”

“But this wasn’t about tampons. There was this woman, actually about your age, who went about her daily routine: she played with her dog, went to the movies with her friends, took in an art gallery, went tanning, laughed at something a handsome guy said to her at a coffee shop—then the commercial narrator reveals the woman has cancer. See, that wasn’t really a tanning bed I saw her in, she was getting radiation therapy.”

“Teresa—”

“Hold on. Whatever insurance company or drug company it was—they made it seem like this woman had penciled in her radiation appointment like another entry in her planner, put there between the coffee shop and buying groceries—like going to do something like that is just another check on the to-do list, because
you don’t want to get too gloomy
. Oh hell no. Don’t let a tumor get in the way of all your fun.”

“I want to see your point.” Martin cranked back his new beer.

She took a deep, trembling breath. “I can’t even have the dignity to die like a normal, self-absorbed American. I’m too damned worried we’ll have another bad October 31
^st
.”

“They’re all bad.”

“You know what I mean. Tony—”

He sighed. “Teresa, I was enjoying myself just a second ago.”

“I saw—got a whole eyeful back there.”

The beer tasted sour now. “Don’t start. Come on. Look, you have to take care of yourself. For a change. I can’t help a woman who refuses to be helped.”

She slid out another clove. “You’re fooling yourself, kid. I can’t help her either.”

He grasped her clove hand. “Just stop,” he whispered.

Carefully, she wiggled her hand free.

“The gateway might open forever this year, so let’s knock off the foolishness and talk strategy,” he said. “Last year we set mantles on a perimeter that the Church never even crossed. It was a wasted effort. We could have saved our energy.”

“Your idea.”

Martin cleared his head for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, I got Tony killed.”

The bartender glanced over but they ignored him. Teresa lit the end of the new clove with a splintered match. After several generous draws, she went sideways on her stool. He almost grabbed her arm to yank her back but didn’t get the chance. Mabel, the woman in the orange dress, stood a foot away now, completely changing the subject.

“Are you taking Route 66 all the way through Arizona?” Mabel asked.

Teresa and Martin, knocked off guard, shook their heads in synchronization.

“A lot of people try to go as far as they can.” Mabel presented all her perfect teeth.
She is something else
, thought Martin. Had he seen her before? What had brought them here? A flat tire, or something unseen?

“Good luck on your trip. Don’t forget our little bar next time you travel through this township.” Mabel stuck out a hand. Martin took it and consumed it in his own. She brought her other hand over and pressed her thumbs into his wrist, gently rubbing circles there. Her eyes caught his for a moment before she released. Mabel shook Teresa’s hand in the same fashion. When their eyes unlocked Teresa’s gaze looked degaussed.

Mabel gave the bartender a peck on the bearded cheek. “I’m going back to study, daddy.”

It was only too apparent. The bartender loved being called daddy. His eyes never left Mabel’s slight sashay until she was out of the miserable little bar. With her going Martin had a sick feeling that he’d never see this woman again. But Mabel was a stranger, after all, so why was that disturbing?

Two beats passed and the bartender said, “Another Newcastle?”

Martin indulged another beat and then nodded.

“Give me one too,” Teresa added.

I am what they call the Messenger in some places, the Interloper in others. That’s a title that some have come to revere, though I can’t explain why. They’ve put me on a higher plane of existence, but I’m not a god. I watch the worlds and read minds. I attempt, in the only way I know, to help my Nomads lessen their burden. I must protect them every day and especially guide them into every October. Martin and Teresa have blood-ties to the Old Domain, but being from this world, they know nothing of its nature.

While they drank at the tavern, the Church of Morning prepared for the new season on the other side of the gateway in the Old Domain. The church balanced on the thin garnet steps of
Azinraith
temple. Their devotional number’s hands clasped together, minds locked as one, giving thanks to the new harvest to come. Warm red threads plunked from one temple step to the next, searching for even ground. The flow would eventually reach the base of the steps and fan out. The shared thought of the Church members pronounced this as good. They would be thankful for the offer and pay tribute. They would bring temple butchers to make gifts for the Archbishop: bone necklaces and pendants, leather bracers, baskets woven from hair and sinew, water bladders, and there would be a new display of unprecedented fecal runes on temple walls, lacquered over for new generations to praise and draw power from.

The Church of Morning estimated the great channel had opened ten spans since the Day of Closing thousands of autumns ago but the potential foreseen this autumn could widen the channel twenty spans more. That was enough space to set the pillars in place and lock the channel open.
Bloodthanks
would be carried out in both worlds, the two Churches would unite again, and new, glorious Tomes would be scribed.

Chaplain Cloth would bring them victory again.

The Heart of the Harvest, the blessed fruit, comes into the world every autumn for a single day. This year it has come again, with a potency that rivals even those early sacrifices at the circle of stones.
Something was special about this year’s Heart
, thought the Church of Morning with great study,
something intrinsically powerful that the Interloper wouldn’t allow them to see
.

They would find out. The plan had been set and the worlds would move under their clawing fingers.

The blood pooled at the temple’s base and a collective sigh hollowed the air as they rocked back and forth on the temple steps, hands clasped together with smiles alike, minds locked as one, giving thanks.

It was enough to make me turn my eyes back to the other world.

Paul had been to some chapels that were absolute dives. Lingering drug addicts thumped their veins in spider-webbed halls, hookers petted your arm as you walked past—inner city gangs frequently had a presence over those small time operations and it often felt like it.

Walking the halls of the Mojave Chapel, however, Paul prayed he’d never visit one of those sorry places again. Here, the expansive halls and richly furnished chambers were built through dedication and focus, and the layout contained a sense of history that some museums even failed to possess. Two decades and millions of laundered dollars had transformed a dead silver mine into an underground palace. The glazed orange-brown walls secured every boulder in its place with mortar and chicken wire, and load-bearing beams and support struts weren’t composed of rotting timber but gold-flaked black marble. There were even air conditioning ducts in the ceiling.