Further Adventures (4 page)

Perry guarded the car. The woman on my back cried herself awake I felt her tears on my neck & turned I looked up and I saw all of a sudden that most of the Fight was knocked out of her. Her dark eyes were dead
staring into my face & I could only see the shiny surface of them. But she was trying to tell me something not in her Language or in mine. In the oldest Language that most people have forgotten. It is the one from our time before words when people only had their emotions & that was how they understood things. What she wanted was I should make it better—to give her Hope that I was not feeble I could help her & not just lay there like a bump on the Earth.

When I had this silent conversation with her I was not 100% sure about how this Adventure with Nilo & Perry was going to end up—maybe they were going to repent and return us to our side of Mason or maybe it was on the cards I could rescue us with some fast talking. Even if they tied us together her back to my back I knew how to get out of the Ropes I did it many times before for instance in Night Of The Clown also I tried to communicate this to her in some way by my eyes. What I tried to do was bring her Hope out of the hopelessness a smile & a wink. This did not do the trick.

The rear door on my side broke open and Perry made a rough grab for the woman & yanked her out by her arms her knees hit the Ground hard. “You ain’t no trouble, are you Amelia,” he warned her but she spit in his face then Perry did not think about what to do he just did it—Punched her hard in the stomach and it went that fast: spit-punch it was a cruel Reflex.

I watched from inside the car where I started to think that Nilo & Perry just forgot about me but no such Luck there was Nilo with his hand on my wrist like a Strict Teacher. “You walkin’ or you want me to carry you in?” I went under my own steam because what else? Pole vault over the chain link fence?

Those German Shepherds tore around the house in wild happiness & escorted Nilo when he put me & Amelia in the back bedroom. “This is illegal what you’re doing,” I informed him.

Nilo chuckled. “Tell me about it!”

So I did. “You think you can get away with this? Kidnapping innocent people off the street!” I got worked up now & even though it was my desire to remain calm & set a good example for Amelia not to mention the dogs I did not have the Strength to hold my Emotions down. “What the hell do you want from us?”

“Shut up and sit down before you give yourself a heart attack you old fart.” Nilo was not interested in my Health nor my comfort when he pointed at a bulbous shape that looked like it just oozed out of the corner of the room. “Sit down.”

“On what?”

“On that beanbag thing. Follow my finger.”

“Those things are terrible for your back,” I advised him.

“Sit!” he told me and Princess & Harley obeyed their master’s Voice. I did not obey. “We all want to get through this thing in one piece,” was Nilo’s advice. His fist was raised he took a step toward me but I did not flinch until Perry came in so I decided to sit. “You got ice cream all over your chin,” he said to Perry then he said to me like I was his Dear Friend, “He likes Princess to lick it off him. Disgusting ain’t it.”

“Does the other dog get jealous?” I tried to lull him with a conversation.

“Harley’s a boy.” Then some aggravating thought broke into Nilo’s mind. “What I gotta explain anything to
you
for?” He looked at his wristwatch and in the softest Voice I heard him use so far he said, “Yo Perry. If you’re done messin’ around with Princess call him up and tell him we got Amelia here but don’t tell him—nah hell tell him we got this other problem here too.”

Nilo came & sat on the windowsill or anyway he leaned his flabby Buttocks against it pressed his hands together and stared down at his shoes. Amelia did not say a word and I got the picture that these men were not complete strangers to her so her vision of what they wanted her for did not come out of her Dark Imagination. I put my arm around her shoulder.

Perry came in he sprang into the room barking & playing Princess & Harley chasing him until he let them believe that they overpowered him so he fell on the floor rolling around there saying, “You got me! I’m dead! I’m dead meat!” Then Perry jerked up and got Harley in a armlock around his neck. “Gotcha! I’m not dead you bastard! I gotcha!” Now his grip was not playful the poor dog started choking & twisting his head to get away digging in its front paws. “All right. That’s uncle.” He let Harley go. “Told me sit on ’em till he gets here.” Perry was talking to Nilo but lying on his back staring at the ceiling.

“Where’s he at now?”

“Secret location. Said it’d be least an hour.” For the first time Perry said something to Amelia in a gentle tone of Voice. “You know why Messican men all have mustaches?” He answered it himself. “So they can look like their mothers!” Perry’s laugh sounded like Harley choking it was the only Sound in the room.

“Look you finish wiring up those lights?” Nilo wanted to know.

Perry shrugged & he threw a rubber bone over to Princess. It bounced off the wall and landed between her front paws where she ignored it. “What’s the point?”

“Point is the power ain’t goin’ to be off forever and when he gets here I don’t want to be trippin’ over things in the dark like a fool.” Nilo tossed Perry a flashlight.

Perry sat up Indian style he got busy fixing the wires on a pair of lamps shaped like bowls of fruit spray-painted gold. “Where’s my needle-nose pliers?” He shined his flashlight around the floor he located them in front of Amelia’s feet. “Kick ’em over Senorita.” Amelia did not do it. Perry crouched down to pick them up & held them close in front of her face & menaced her with them making the pliers open & close a few times then he went back to work on the fruit bowl Lamps.

Nilo checked his watch again he yawned. From 10 feet away I smelled the sour beer & dirty teeth. “What do you do?” he asked me. I
did not give this kidnapper the satisfaction. Then he asked me again & he wanted the Respect of my reply. “Tell me.”

“Retired.”

Nilo shifted his Buttocks on the windowsill it Sounded like any second the wood was going to split underneath him. “Retired what?” He was getting nothing from me. “Retired dogcatcher? Retired garbage-man?” Nilo was not a interested party just trying to goat me.

Princess dropped her rubber bone at my feet.

“What’d you do before you got retired from it?” Perry got in on the Act.

The dog reared back and barked to command my attention. I threw the bone & answered Nilo simultaneous. “Doctor.” I was NOT going to let that cheap bully feel Superior to me! But my answer meant something special to Perry because for the moment he lost his interest in the lamp.

“Jew doctor?”

Amelia squeezed my hand and I did not say anything back.

“We let a kike into our home?” Perry asked the room. Nilo laughed like it was the punch line of a dirty joke. Perry had his teeth into something fun i.e. Yours Truly and he just fiddled with the shaft of the screwdriver & flicked the loose wires back & forth to give his twitchy fingers some business to do. “You a kike Izzie? You a Zog Jew bastard?”

I gave him my profile. “Kish mir in tuchas!” I was not going to admit
anything
!

What happened after that I imagine now as if I did not see it from in that house but I saw it from somewhere in the Air over the East 8th. I imagine I see the Lights coming on street by street a line of streetlights flicking on cutting more pieces out of the dark. A rolling wave of Light and a surge of Power humming down the wires under the street under the crabgrass into the walls of that house spraying like a Fountain out of the bare lamp Perry forgot to unplug…Light swelled in the bulb and broke it and let out the smell of Electric smoke & Perry was on the
floor with his hand clamped very tight on that buzzing lamp…his jaws locked together…blue smoke came curling through his fingers with those raw Volts belting into him.

Nilo tried to pull the plug out of the wall but in the dark again he only knocked over a table it fell between him and the socket. I did not need to signal Amelia what to do nor I did not have to think very cautious about it either. She pulled the front door open so hard it bounced on its hinges & almost slammed shut again in my face. We ran out across the front yard and I heard Nilo shouting his head off in my direction. “Come back here! Help! Help him! You have to you’re a doctor! If he dies it’s gonna be your fault!”

But I did not stop. I saw Amelia duck into somebody’s backyard so I could guess that she knew how to reach her best Avenue of Safety. I fell over the rusty handlebars of a bicycle that was on the front lawn and I had no Guilt about stealing it to use for my escape. The house was on a hill so I could coast down with no brakes and Nilo shouting at me all the way. When I got to the bottom I pedaled for my Life.

How did this Country fall so far? How did it get this way for people to Act so low and hurting and disrespecting to feel Satisfied? The United States of America used to be a lamp unto all the Nations and then in that time the American Way meant the pursuit of happiness not greed and Liberty not lust. All the Foreign masses who suffered in the mud yearning to breathe free lived with a Hope in the world in the form of a place with standards of Public Decency. The Public was decent I remember nor I do not believe my memory is tricky about this. Tell me how a place like that turned into a place like this.

I pedaled that bike out past the end of the neighborhood which was also the end of Mason only the gas station after that and then only
the Desert. I did not know where I was going I just pedaled with all of my Strength to put Nilo & Perry & the dirty events of that night behind me. But a big push on the pedals was 1 push too many & the rusty chain snapped off the gears it whipped against my ankle & I almost broke my Testicles on the bar under the seat. (I am 73 Years of age and I still do not know why they put a solid metal bar on a boy’s bike and no bar on a girl’s bike when it does not take a PHD in Anatomy to see that it should be the other way around.) I had that idea in my mind and between my legs this Ache the size of a watermelon. I heaved the bike into the middle of the road where a big truck should crush it to Death.

My ankle felt like a snake bit into it and it bit harder & deeper on each step I took. But I could not stop making tracks because my feet had a mind of their own nor they did not want to be stuck in the middle of Nowhere in the wee small hours. So I noticed that it was a different Sound under my shoes—not the slap of them on Asphalt anymore but the soft dull pad of sand underneath me. In the dawn’s early light I saw how I was off the road I was in the middle of the Desert i.e. the middle of red sand red rocks & tumbleweeds. A mackerel would feel more at home than I did & I thought a mackerel would have a better chance of Survival.

The Sun always rises in the East this is a scientific fact so when it poked its early rays over the rim of the mesas I almost fainted from relief. If I knew which direction was East then I knew which direction was West North etc. I was Calm for about a second because then I realized I did not know what direction from there Mason was. I believe it was that moment when my heart started beating faster from the worry but I did not want to cry I wanted to laugh! What a thing after I made it through all that terrible business with those apes Nilo & Perry then I ended up lost in the hot Desert! What was it going to be now—40 Years of Wandering before I got home to Pecan St.?

So I did not stand still when the Sun came up I went walking toward it while the Dark shrank to shadows under the rock ledges. And then the Sun rose up fiery in front of me it was not a sight I ever saw before it came Roaring into my eyes—the Air opened up & the same way the Sun was rising so was I floating up in clouds of Light—I had sharp gravel grinding inside my chest & all of my Breath sucked out of me—my skin & bones dropping out of me nor my Body did not have anything left for Gravity to pull down & if I moved a muscle the sun was going to suck me through a hole in the sky—if this is a Heart Attack I promise NO MORE FAT FOODS!—& I saw the Light of the stars pushing everywhere it is not shining already—everywhere it is empty dark the Green Light of stars wants to fill it—I heard the Voices of Angels without teeth it was the Sound of air hissing & I breathed in I floated higher & I looked down then I saw my Body lying in the desert curled up like a sleeping baby in the middle of Nowhere—there was my own face set apart from that dry dead place I saw how I am Singled Out in the world. It was very beautiful to see this Sight. Also I saw which direction Pecan St. was from there then I fell again. I came back out of the blue of the thin Air I was coming back for a High Purpose.

My Purpose was not for my own glory I saw it was to bring back Hope to the world. A kind of Hope that mocks & ignores Human barriers the way the weather mocks & ignores the borders of Nations.

I was a little bit shaky on my feet when I stood up and looked around. I did not see anybody else anywhere. “Me?” I cried up to the sky in that empty place with my Voice like a echo in the Air. “Who? Me?”

If all it was was just leaving my Body & floating upward into the clouds of Light at the threshold between Life & Death and returning to the World & back into my old man body a changed person then I am sure
all it would take to make me feel O.K. again is a nice nap. But after the excitement of touching the edge of the Universe and learning about my High Purpose in the tangled web of all Human Life I had to walk 12 Miles back to Pecan St. &
then
push my legs up 2 Flights of stairs to my apartment.

I was exhausted from limb to limb. “I feel terrific,” I said to the vacant rooms. “I never felt better in my life,” I said to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I saw I had a bruise on my forehead but I did not even feel it there until I saw it. I believe that it is a matter of Record that many soldiers in the field of battle suffer horrible wounds for instance bullet holes and exposed organs and they fight on ignorant about their condition so they become Heroes. Maybe it is only survival this is my guess.